UK Landlord Forum / Life

So when I was a tenant a few years ago I had an experience where a push flush toilet went kaput. The button would no longer operate the flush and on looking it up apparently they only lasted about 3-4 years at a time. Now the Landlord company were a real pain in the ass in terms of getting anything done you had to really badger them and I didn't have the time as I was doing studies so after emailing them & knowing I was moving out in a couple of months or so, so just resorted to bucket of water method till my tenancy run out and moved on.

I had previous to that looked up to see if the job would be cheap, quick & easy to do myself, I recall that it did not. I know normally its the Landlord that should pick up the job but like I say they were a complete pain in the arse getting them to do anything, they eventually would but only after significant amount to my time & effort spent chasing them which I did not have as during my studies. Anyway, it entailed getting the right vacuum contraption inside the tank and not only that for the model I had it mean't taking the tank of to fit it, etc. Now naturally this is more work than I had time or bother to do and I wasn't going to put myself out to that extent, the vacuum units were at least £20 or so and the one for this model hard to find as it was an older one that DIY stores didn't seem to commonly stock.

I recall myself thinking at the time, what a stupid invention, I'm pretty sure on my mothers place the handle flush can go about a decade or so, maybe two quite easily without needing a replacement and when one is needed its just a case of drain down & replace not cistern unbolting, disconnecting & lift off. Well, now I'm in a position to become a Landlord on a property and I will need to purchase toilets, yet they now commonly seem to be the push flush type which while are modern looking I am concerned will have the above shortcoming built into them. I'm usually pretty decent at DIY but even I don't want to spend time unbolting & disconnecting bit by bit a whole cistern just to do what should be a simple job. Hence I am swayed to looking at the traditional handle flush toilets more but these seem much less common these day and idk I kind of find it more natural feeling to turn a handle rather than push down on a button, maybe that's just me. Anyway, wondering what others do when it comes to this toilet option here? Am I right in looking more for the handle flush?   

It's not the flush mechanism so much as the type of cistern coupling that makes a difference. On a conventional high or low level cistern you've go a flush pipe between the tank and the pan, so you can normally get at the nut underneath the tank that holds the mechanism in, without disturbing things too much. With a close-coupled cistern, the tank bolts directly to the pan, so you have to take the tank off to replace the flush.

When it comes to the actual mechanism, you can either go for the traditional syphon or the more modern valve type.I always use the latter these days as they take much less force to operate and they're easier to set up the dual-flush levels on. The other big plus is that you can get ones where the valve body clicks onto a bayonet fitting in the tank so, if it develops a fault, you can whip it off and service or replace it without touching the plumbing.

The ones I've used recently, Fluidmaster, come in either a push-button or lever-action version. The downside of the lever-action one is the lever tends to rotate in its hole because people assume it's a syphon valve and so give it the traditional amount of welly!

Quote from: Simon Pambin on April 19, 2017, 09:31:34 AM
It's not the flush mechanism so much as the type of cistern coupling that makes a difference. On a conventional high or low level cistern you've go a flush pipe between the tank and the pan, so you can normally get at the nut underneath the tank that holds the mechanism in, without disturbing things too much. With a close-coupled cistern, the tank bolts directly to the pan, so you have to take the tank off to replace the flush.

When it comes to the actual mechanism, you can either go for the traditional syphon or the more modern valve type.I always use the latter these days as they take much less force to operate and they're easier to set up the dual-flush levels on. The other big plus is that you can get ones where the valve body clicks onto a bayonet fitting in the tank so, if it develops a fault, you can whip it off and service or replace it without touching the plumbing.

The ones I've used recently, Fluidmaster, come in either a push-button or lever-action version. The downside of the lever-action one is the lever tends to rotate in its hole because people assume it's a syphon valve and so give it the traditional amount of welly!

Ah, yes I think I remember now more fully now that you mentioned the mechanism. It had the modern value mechanism inside, but I either couldn't find the make and/or couldn't find a supplier. The local DIY stores only stocked a different make of modern value mechanism so hence I would need to buy one of them, take of the cistern to take the whole thing out and replace with a new modern value mechanism. Needless to say this was far deeper than my tenancy agreement allowed, lol. I remember thinking at the time that if I could just get the same make easily then it would just be a case of pull off the old one and stick on new one on the existing bayonet coupling inside the cistern as you state. Unfortunately though it looked like there is no universal fit between manufacturers when it comes to the bayonet coupling making the task a whole lot more long winded and more time consuming fuss than I could afford to spend at the time. That's the unfortunate situations that can crop up when DIYing it I guess.