Problems with fill valve
Sorry to piggyback on this thread but it looks like a similar post and I need the photo of the fill valve in there.
Kindly help. I am almost at wit's end!
It's now been almost 2 weeks (a blown angle stop, soaking bathroom carpet and padding, 3 plumbers visits, etc) and I cannot recall exactly the problem with my toilet. For one thing, the old fill valve was spraying random jets of water out its side, getting too close to the mysterious four holes in the back of the toilet tank (which Kohler says were probably for hanging the toilets on the assembly line but just could be for some sort of vacuum/veniliation, so maybe I shouldn't block them!). I also think it had a slow leak, possibly due to a very worn flapper. The plumber took one look at the old valve and immediately decided to replace it with a PF140999 one piece ballcock by PROFLO (also replaced the flapper, which was very worn). This valve looks exactly like the photo HJ posted in this thread. Becasue I have a second such toilet upstairs with the original valve, I can see that this replacement valve is missing a swivel thingee on the side of the valve. Also, the outlet that connects to the front of the tank (for rim wash, I think) is positioned about 1.5 inches higher than on the original valve, therefore causing that line to be barely uphill whereas on the original, it is quite a bit more of an incline. Also, on the old toilet, it looks like the outlet on the fill valve for the rim feed fits right into the toilet tank's 6" curved, run of very hard plastic that runs all the way to the front of the tank; whereas with the new valve, it looks like this plumber may have cut out most of the hard plastic run and instead inserted about 6 inches of flex clear plastic hose that came with the new valve, inserting one end over the valve outlet and the other end into the only one inch of the hard plastic run. The difference being that water can conceivably leak into the hard plastic at a much higher height in the badly performing toilet than it can on the old unit (on the old unit, it can enter right at the low height of the outlet of the fill valve, but then has a much steeper uphill run).
The reason I mention all this is that, with this new fill valve (1 B1-X, which says it fits 7 brands of 1 piece toilets), I cannot get the fill valve to shut off 100%. There is always some hissing and, sometimes, almost randomly, 15 minutes later the quiet hissing slowly builds up and turns noisy (almost like the sound of a siphon pressure building up as it reaches full volume). At this point, I notice that the tank water level has dropped about 1/4 inch, where it stays, until I flush again. I notice that bubbles of water also can then be seen going through that clear tube feeding the rim of the bowl. And drops of water fall from the flex clear hose just where it enters the hard plastic run sometimes. It seems that some sort of odd siphoning action is happening here.
It is driving me nuts. So any of these clues above suggest why this is happening? The plumber, after 3 visits, has written it off as finicky and has lost interest, particularly in waiting for 15 minutes each time he adjusts to see if the noise goes away (he, apaprently, correctly tells me Kohler is still looking for a new supplier for what will apparently be a conversion kit, possibly becasue they know this system stinks and they expect it to cost over $100 when they finally find a manufacturer).
Manually lifting the rod always eliminates any noise so I assume that somehow or another, if the water level is dropping, the valve cannot cause the water level in the tank to refill high enough to shutoff the valve - the water must be leaking off into the bowl, or down the drain, I assume. The doughnut below the FLUSH valve may have a tiny, tiny slow leak. I have turned every screw, bent the lever arm, and nothing seems to work for more than 2 or 3 flushes in a row.
Thanks so much.
Dean