Toilet ballcock replacement

mankteln

Hi all. The downstairs toilet in my house (built in the 60's) has been dripping from the side where the input pipe is. The water rises slightly above that level and I was hoping I'd be able to adjust the ballcock arm to have it only rise to a lower level to provide a simple fix but unfortunately it seems like the arm mechanism is a bit worn (plastic) so no joy. I bought new ballcock/arm/input section and thought it'd be simple to just turn the water off and fit but on investigation it seems like the cistern is filled by the tank in the attic rather than the mains. I'm a little worried about running the attic tank dry to change it in case I airlock the system. Should I be?
Any advice appreciated, thanks.

LenWoods

Provided you dont use the hot water tap during the process of working on the toilet
Then you should be fine as the level within your copper tank will remain full of water even though the header tank is potentially empty,
Only risk of air entering if the hot water was used.

Dr_Colossus

Ideally there should be an isolated valve on the inlet pipe to the cistern but if house over 50 years old unlikely. Failing that there should be a gate valve in your hotpress turning off the cold water supply, separate one for hot water feed from the tank and separate again for heating system.
You shouldn't have to run your attic tank dry as should always be able to turn off water locally in case of a leak without having to let hundreds of water from attic flood the place.
When fitting the replacement parts with water disconnected it would be a good time to insert a valve in case you ever have to change the siphon or similar again.

mankteln

Yeah unfortunately there's no isolation valve (none anywhere in the house!). So there should be a valve by the hot press that isolates the cold water supply from the attic to the downstairs toilet taps/toilet? Presumably if it's only stopped from that point force of gravity would be sufficient to make sure there's no airlock when reopening after changing the fitting?
As I've discovered over time nothing is ever straight forward in an older house. The electrics have taken quite a bit of work (thankfully not by me), and still not ideal!

bluelamp

Probably not the correct way to do it, I'm no plumber... but if you drain the tank to change it, and its airlocked afterwards, you could use a garden hose from a mains fed tap to run water backwards through the pipe up to the tank to clear the airlock?

Treppen

These any good?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arctic-Hayes-ASK2-Freezer-Spray/dp/B00IHXO2VK/ref=asc_df_B00IHXO2VK/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=256125662130&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5527372367511082638&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007850&hvtargid=pla-420104145260&psc=1

You have only an hour window to get it changed though so yould want to be on the ball

mankteln

bluelamp wrote: »

Probably not the correct way to do it, I'm no plumber... but if you drain the tank to change it, and its airlocked afterwards, you could use a garden hose from a mains fed tap to run water backwards through the pipe up to the tank to clear the airlock?

Yeah that's the situation I want to avoid to be honest! Definitely has the potential to get messy...