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FluidMaster (toilet repair) Responds my complaint

there was a thread here a few months ago and folks voiced their experience/s w/FluidMaster valve kits. some loved them, some hated them (including me) because of a short life.

today i got a letter from them, responding to a "survey" i submitted that included my comments about the short life. they blame it on "Tejas" water(!), too many chloramines and chlorine, and say two years is a very good result for Texas. i am getting 18mos or less.

this is a big state but most municipal water is surface, so this makes some sense to me, but i almost never smell chlorine in the water, maybe once or twice in the past 10yrs. i test water for my aquarium and it never registers chlorine strait out of the tap.

anyhoo, the letter said they are sending two 400a valve kits as thanks for the feedback. just fyi, --Loren

Reply to
Loren Coe
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I thought the box says you're supposed to get 2 million flushes? That's gotta work out to over 500 years, give or take :^).

John

Please note that my return address is wrong due to the amount of junk email I get. So please respond to this message through the newsgroup.

Reply to
John Flanagan

This is a strong function of some scaling number. You need to take divide the number of females in the house by the number of males, and then multiply that by the BMC [1] to scale properly.

Jim

[1] bran muffin coefficient

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Reply to
jim rozen

This is the unit with the coaxial float, and a twist-extendable main "stem"? Not with the arm with float on the end? I have converted pretty much all the toilets, including at relative's houses, to these, and they seem to last a long time. I'm just starting to see the wearout of the first ones I put in about 12-14 years ago. This is in the St. Louis, Missouri area, much of our water is well, but some is river water. We have pretty hard water, and get lots of calcium-like deposits on everything. The toilet tanks look like they have 1/4" of dissolved chalk in them, and the water heaters fill up with stones and weigh 400+ pounds when you haul them out (that's AFTER draining all the water out).

Some other toilet tank valves, sink faucets, etc. have either failed, or needed internal cleaning due to all this calcium, but the fluidmaster seems to handle what our local water utilities throw at it with no trouble at all.

So, that's my experience with 3 water utilities in this region.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

i have been here for 13yrs and never have had to replace the flapper, well, maybe once, and have tossed a couple. out in NM the flapper lasted okay but if you didn't stay right on top of it, the seat pitted and then you had a retrofit job. i had guessed at one time,

1/2 of the rental houses in Alamogordo had the "spontaneous fill" syndrome. --Loren
Reply to
Loren Coe

I wasn't sure whether he was talking about the fill valve or the flapper. The flappers also last a long time, 12 years at least. I have replaced only one that I put in here in our new (to us) house, and it had been in there a long time. So, it must be something in the water. There is a state (MO) law that all utility water must be neutralized so it is not acid, to prevent leaching of lead from pipes.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

It's always the fault of something in the water :^).

Please note that my return address is wrong due to the amount of junk email I get. So please respond to this message through the newsgroup.

Reply to
John Flanagan

I have a toilet I moved to FluidMaster in 1998 or 99 with no problems. Our municipal water (Southwest Michigan) is chlorinated heavily due to old pipes and trying to keep Zebra mussels off the filtration plant's intake pipes. So far, so good with the Fluidmaster.

Maybe the unit(s) you bought were a defective lot. I guess time will tell with the new ones you get.

--G--

Reply to
George

yes, exactly.

thanks for the detail, Jon. i have been "rehabing" the valve assy's and am still on a learning curve. i refuse to buy another, either valve kit or complete assy. however, if i get the two additional assy's from the company, i will keep using Fluidmaster (i should have a lifetime supply of valves ;-).

what gets me is that Peerless is sold here thru Walmart and they carry a lifetime warranty. of course i have no idea of any "shipping/handling" charges they may demand, or if Walmart would exchange them.

the problem seems to be "friction" in the valve (a metal pin and butyl rubber/venturi gizmo) that develops w/use. it's not crud from the water which is very good here in Plano. magnification indicated that some of the rubber deposits on the pin. very little however, but cleaning it and the rubber valve restores operation for some period.

if i can still find "silcone spray", i will try applying it next time.

Regards, --Loren

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Reply to
Loren Coe

I once bought a white pilot valve disc that lasted 4 times longer than the black rubber part. Have never seen them again. This disk is about

1" D with hole for SS pin from float linkage.
Reply to
R. Duncan

"pilot valve" is a new term for me, it sure gets a lot of hits on google.

white makes me think of teflon, maybe too expensive? more likely a cheaper compound replaced it for "economy". --Loren

Reply to
Loren Coe

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