I’ve recently had this problem where it can take a half hour or more for the tank for my toilet to refill since about the end of winter, which means I can only use it once every hour or so. I’ve heard plumbing can be expensive in Japan, but I’m not even sure who to call? In my home country, I used to just call the apartment management and they’d send someone over. What’s the procedure here in Japan?
Or if anyone has any experience about solving this sort of problem without a plumber, that’d also be great!
Edit: I should also add that the faucet above it used to run after a flush, but stopped doing so at about the same time.
7 comments
are you living in an apartment or your own house?
If you’re renting an apartment you should call the apartment management company, the same as you would back home. If they say they can’t help you though, I’m not sure what other steps you can take
Is it the flow of the water, if so, you can do it yourself
Take off the back lid or cover to the toilet. When the tank is filling up, is it filling up slowly? If so, there should be a water valve somewhere in the toilet where you can loosen it up and increase the flow. It probably won’t look like a regular faucet, it will look like a minus screw that you can only turn with a screwdriver maybe.
If it used to be fine, then it’s possibly a fault with the plumbing; perhaps damaged pipes or evidence of a leak/broken seal. more likely if you happen to live in a cold snowy winter area. So yeah start by calling your management company and ask them to inspect.
Take a look to see how it’s refilling, maybe the float ball is being weighed down by arming, or the arm that its attached to is getting clogged up somehow.
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Is your ballcock a bit stiff?
It might not be rising properly as it refills the cistern.
Or perhaps there’s not enough water flow. If so, give the cock a twist, to see if that offers some relief.
If that doesn’t provide total satisfaction, maybe call one of the plumbers who often leave their adverts in your mailbox, they’ll have a tool that can fix anything.