Airrex seal

[PeterW]

Hello from South Africa

I am certainly glad to have found this forum and hope you can help me. I am not a plumber but do like to do most of the repairs and maintenance around my home myself. I have just bought a new home and one of the toilets is not working properly. It is an old house (about 20 years) and the cistern seems to have a vacuum type mechanism inside. There are 2 of these cisterns in the house and the one works fine but the handle does need to be cranked a few times to get the toilet to flush. With the other toilet the handle only has to be cranked once to release the water from the cistern into the pan but the water does not wash the solids away.

I have opened all the pipes to check that they are not blocked and also checked that there is no obstruction in the pan. I called at the local plumbing outlet and they tell me that I need an "Airrex" seal but these are no longer available in SA but he thought they might still be available in the UK.

There are no markings on the cistern or pan and the only marking I can find is the word "albrin" on the cistern mechanism.

I would be very grateful for any assistance.

Many thanks

Peter

[Dava811]

The reason you have to crank the handle a few times is because the plastic diaphram is rotted or mis-shaped so its not creating the syphonic action required to start the water flushing down the pipe, you can make your own from a heavy duty piece of plastic or just buy 1, as for the Airrex seal, im not too sure and its better left to one of the "proper plumbers".

Hope i helped a bit tho

[PeterW]

Thanks for the reply. It appears that these valves are like hens teeth. I will replace the cistern mechanism and see if this works.