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Salt Lake City Office
1152 W 2400 S,
West Valley City, UT 84119
St. George Office
368 Commerce St Unit 30-31,
Hurricane, UT 84737
Ogden Office
1805 2900 S Unit #1,
Ogden, UT 84401
Phone: (801) 355-4433
License: #12559394-5501
As we explored in our last blog, the modern toilet has two parts: The tank and the bowl. In that article, we discussed the bowl and its various elements and functions – today, we’ll discuss the tank.
At Whipple Plumbing, our plumbers service clogged toilets and other toilet issues quite regularly. In some cases, issues begin with the tank above the bowl itself. Here are the purposes of the tank, its parts, and how it works.
Toilets function using pressure to siphon away waste, but within a normal household water pipe, there simply isn’t enough pressure to create this kind of vacuum. That’s where the tank comes in – it may take 30 to 60 seconds to fill a tank with water, but it takes just three seconds for all this water to be dumped into the bowl when you flush the toilet. This quick rate creates the needed siphoning effect for toilet flushing.
All of the following parts work together in the tank:
When you press the handle, the handle arm lifts the chain, which opens the flapper and activates the flush valve. Water rushes into the bowl through the drain hole, and washes waste out.
The float ball lowers when the tank empties, and this tells the fill valve to start refilling. As this is happening, the flapper closes over the drain hole to seal it off from the bowl. The tank fills until the float ball rises to a predetermined level, at which time filling ceases.
Want to learn more about the toilet tank, or in need of any of our other plumbing services? Speak to the pros at Whipple Plumbing today.