American Standard Cadet 3 Toilet Flush Problem

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Retired2006

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The toilet only flushes properly if I hold the handle down for the complete time that it takes to empty the tank. I've looked inside and see that the flapper only stays up while I'm holding the handle. As soon as I let go, flapper falls leaving the tank half full.
Any solutions would be welcome.
 

Willie Two

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put a brass nut or two into the tube attached to the flapper to improve the counterbalance. Did that at home and it works !! Just don't block that tiny hole in the bottom of the tube.
 

Gary Swart

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You both have a misunderstanding about low flow toilets. A normal flush only uses about half of the tank's water. If you hold the handle down, you are defeating the low flow feature and using 3 or more gallons of water per flush. The flapper is designed to close very quickly. The reason for this is two fold. First, the added water provides a bit more pressure to the water that is used so that it will get out of the tank and into the bowl quicker. Secondly, the reserve left in the tank can be used if needed for an added flush. In real life, in the 2 plus years I have been using my 2 Toto toilets, the only time I have used the full tank is when cleaning the bowl. Even then it probably is unnecessary. There is nothing wrong with you toilets.
 

DaveHo

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I installed one of these a few months ago. At first, I too had an issue with the lever needing to be held down for an excessive amount of time to get a complete flush, even with just liquid waste. I noticed there was a rubberband wrapped around the fill tube & the flapper pivot. I cut that off & it flushes fine now.

-Dave
 

Gary Swart

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The original poster said he had to [/B]hold the handle down "to empty the tank"[/B] This was the basis of my reply about low flow toilets not emptying their tanks on a normal flush.
 

GEORGE S.

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Adjust the Fluidmaster 540 Flapper to prevent premature closing

The toilet only flushes properly if I hold the handle down for the complete time that it takes to empty the tank. I've looked inside and see that the flapper only stays up while I'm holding the handle. As soon as I let go, flapper falls leaving the tank half full.
Any solutions would be welcome.

I had the same problem, called American Standard, and they were no help. Searched the web for 2 days before finding the solution, which was not in this thread, so I'm adding it now. The problem is the Fluidmaster 540 flapper ball, which can be adjusted to delay flapper closing. (The American Standard help desk never mentioned this.) There is a scale from 1 to 10 and the flapper was set to 1, which means it closes the fastest. I wanted to set it to 10, but couldn't figure out how. Fluidmaster even has a YouTube video explaining this but never mentions how to change the setting. I was worried I would break the plastic trying to force it. Finally I found a helpful forum like this one where "Andy" explained that the two tiny white nubs must be pushed in with a screwdriver, allowing the bulb to turn. I set it to 10 but still had a problem, which was fixed when I removed the chain from the outermost fitting on the flapper and moved it to the innermost fitting, which is at the center of the flapper. Voila! The toilet now flushes normally! It's amazing that neither American Standard nor Fluidmaster had the answer on the Internet (or at the help desk). Were it not for forums like this, we would all have to reinvent the wheel.
 
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WJcandee

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Yeah, but...

If by "flushes normally" you mean "drains the whole tank", then -- CONGRATULATIONS -- you have turned your 1.6gpf toilet into a 4-gallon-per-flush toilet.

If you don't care, that's fine, but the whole point of a low-flow is to, well, save water. It doesn't NEED a tankful of water to do an effective flush cycle. It only needs about half, now that most manufacturers have copied Toto's approach of using the weight of the excess water in the tank to power the flush without actually USING all that water.

Generally, if the waste isn't going to go down with the amount of water specified by the manufacturer (i.e. if it's going to clog), it's going to do that whether you dump the whole tank in or not.
 

K9mlxj

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I'm having a similar flush issue also w/ liquid on a brand new Cadet 3 2403 FloWise one-piece compact toilet.

I shortened the chain length to the flapper but still had issue w/ not flushing even for one piece of toilet paper close to the top edge of the rim.

I look at this 1.28gpf green flapper and it closes down sooner compared to a 1.6gpf Cadet 3 toilet's white flapper (in my other bathroom). This flapper in the 2403 FloWise toilet is also heavier than the 1.6gpf toilet's white flapper so I'm not sure if the extra weight of the flapper is causing it to close sooner.


I'm not sure if this green flapper is adjustable as the FluidMaster 540 flapper.

DSCN3311.jpg


The siphon action seemed to be weak and perhaps could not push the toilet paper down.


Also, I read this thread and realized the water level in the bowl after flush did not rise up to the fullest possible.

I found out about this by slowly adding water to the bowl after flush, and managed to increase the water level quite a bit.

I checked the holes along the rim and they looked ok.


Any suggestions?
 
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Terry

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If that purple device is inline with the bowl refill, and the bowl doesn't completely re-fill after a flush, that could be the issue.
 

MikePlummer

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I have noticed on all FloWise toilets I've seen, that the water level in the bowl is very low after flushing. it's natural that the flapper on the 1.28 toilet is going to close sooner than the 1.6 - it's using less water....
 

Jadnashua

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FWIW, the lower the flow, assuming you want to actually replace all of the water in the bowl rather than dilute it like some poorly designed dual flush toilets, the bowl contents cannot stay the same volume...it must get smaller. You can spread it out, making it shallow, but it can't be both a large water spot AND deep when you go to a low flow toilet. The toilet I had in my apartment in Germany solved that by having NO water spot and used a high pressure jet stream to wash it of when you flushed. You did not want to be sitting there when that happened! And, there was nothing to block the smell before you did flush...not what we use here in the USA, but probably a lower volume flush than most.
 

K9mlxj

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Thx for all the responses. I removed the in-tank toilet cleaner and the water level went up a bit--but still quite away from the level compared to if I manually added to the bowl water level.


Two things I wonder then:

1. I really like the in-tank toilet cleaner as it's neat and won't damage the gaskets/materials in the tank. How'd I be able to compensate for the loss of bowl water level w/ it installed inline?


2. As several have pointed out--the FloWise toilet has this lower bowl water level by design -- I suppose. So the manual bowl water level test would be invalid then for this kind of low-flow toilet (1.28gpf)?



Still, it should be able to flush a piece or two of toilet papers around the top edge of the rim I suppose -- which it doesn't right now.

I just feel that the siphon action is weak. Is that true on the AS FloWise toilets?
 
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K9mlxj

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Mystery solved.

The 1.28 gpf 2403 Cadet 3 Compact 1-piece toilet is able to flush solid ok, but not the lightweight toilet papers around the edge of the rim.


So I compared the rim holes of the 1.28gpf Cadet 3 Compact 1-piece toilet to the 1.6 gpf Cadet 3 toilet in the other bathroom.


The 1.28gpf Cadet 3 Compact 1-piece toilet is missing one large water dispense hole under the far corner of the rim.


DSCN3313.jpg

(no large water dispense hole under the rim in the area -- circled in red)

Water stream coming out of that area during a flush is so weak it simply cannot flush anything in that area down to the bowl.

So any toilet papers resting around that area would just be left unflushed.


Sounds like I have a defective unit (unless all 1.28 gpf Cadet 3 2403 1-piece Compact's don't have a hole under that spot).
 
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K9mlxj

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BTW,

I wonder if anyone can confirm the 2403 Cadet 3 1-piece Compact toilet does have a large water dispense hole under the front rim area (near circled red)?

That way I don't have to purchase another to find out this model doesn't have the large rim hole around there by design.


Thx.
 

K9mlxj

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Update:

I also found out the rim holes on the the 1-piece 2403 AS toilet were not 100% opened completely. When I looked carefully, I noticed opening @ the far end was smaller causing even weaker water flow down to the bowl.

That's an obvious defect on the bowl.


I ordered another 2403 unit, and it arrived today. The rim holes on this unit were uniform and the holes went all the way thru'. However I still did not see the larger rim hole like the 2-piece AS Cadet 3 1.6gpf toilet I have in the other bathroom under the far tip of the bowl.


Using my wife's mirror, I took two pics.


This is the large rim hole on the 2-piece AS Cadet 3 1.6gpf toilet I'm talking about that's under the far edge of the rim.

IMG_0068.jpg

The 1.6gpf AS Cadet 3 2-piece toilet flushed toilet papers along the far edge swiftly (w/ or w/o the automatic bowl cleaner installed inline).


This is the same rim area on the 1-piece AS 1.28gpf 2403 Compact Elongated toilet (small rim holes):

IMG_0069.jpg

This new 2403 unit filled the toilet bowl more compared to the defective unit I had, but it only succeeded 50% of the times in flushing toilet papers around the far edge. Comparatively, it did do a better job than the other unit which I think was definitely defective (rim holes not open completely).

(BTW I no longer connected to the automatic bowl cleaner in the tests on the new 2403 unit.)



I think the 1-piece is an elongated bowl and it makes the flushing problem worse w/o that larger rim hole to supply more water to flush down toilet paper(s) around that far edge.


Anyone can shed some light if a 1-piece compact elongated 2403 unit does have a large rim hole around the far edge.


Otherwise, at this point I think I'm hitting a design defect of this toilet.
 
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kpgeo

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You both have a misunderstanding about low flow toilets. A normal flush only uses about half of the tank's water ... There is nothing wrong with you toilets.

This is not correct. I am having the same problem with Cadet 3 1.28 GPF 1 piece elongated toilet with the green flapper mentioned in most of the posts here. Just to convince myself that I wasn't somehow defeating the low-flow feature I filled the tank from empty to full (based on the factory setting of the float valve) with a measuring cup and it was exactly 4.0 litres = 1.05 US gallons. The toilet flushes great if you hold down the handle for the entire one gallon flush. Not holding the handle down uses about half of the water which is not enough to start the siphon action, the result is a weak flush and a higher water level in the bowl.
 
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