Running Cisterns
An inlet valve that will not shut off or a flush valve seal that lets water trickle into the pan. Both are parts, not a new toilet.
Home/Tap & Toilet Repairs
Tap and toilet repairs in Bellville are small jobs that cost a lot when they are left. A running cistern and a dripping mixer both waste metered water every hour, and the fix is usually a valve, a washer or a cartridge carried on the van.
Tell us what it is doing: running, dripping, leaking at the base or not flushing. A photo of the tap or cistern helps.
Most of these are fixed on the first visit, because the parts that fail are standard and carried on the van.
An inlet valve that will not shut off or a flush valve seal that lets water trickle into the pan. Both are parts, not a new toilet.
Broken buttons, stretched cables and flush valves that no longer lift, repaired so the pan clears in one flush.
Water around the base from a failed pan connector or seal, which damages flooring if it is left.
Worn washers on older taps and worn ceramic discs on quarter-turn taps, replaced to stop the drip at source.
Cartridges that drip, stick or will not hold temperature, replaced with the correct cartridge for the make.
The small valves and flexible hoses under basins and cisterns, which seize and burst with age.
A running toilet is the leak you can hear, and it is easy to ignore because it sounds small. It rarely is. A cistern passing half a litre a minute into the pan loses 720 litres a day. Over a month that is more than 21 kilolitres, which is several people's worth of household water going straight to the sewer.
The City charges water in steps, and from 1 July 2026 a household pays R52.20 a kilolitre once its use passes 10.5 kl and R100.71 a kilolitre above 35. A leak of that size can add more than R1,100 a month in water alone for a household already in that middle step. Sanitation is calculated from metered water as well, so that line on the account rises with it.
Two different parts cause it, and the cistern tells you which. If water is running over the top of the overflow pipe inside the cistern, the inlet valve is not shutting off. If the level sits below the overflow but water still trickles into the pan, the flush valve seal at the bottom is letting it through. A few drops of food colouring in the cistern, with no flushing for twenty minutes, shows the second one clearly in the pan.
Taps work the same way on a smaller scale. A steady drip is a worn washer or ceramic disc, and on a mixer it is usually the cartridge. None of these is a reason to replace the whole fitting, and all of them are cheaper fixed than left running into a stepped tariff.
Lift the cistern lid and look. Water over the overflow is the inlet valve; water into the pan below the overflow is the seal. Either way it is a part, and it is costing you every hour it runs.
A small job still deserves a straight price and a working bathroom at the end of the day.
If a toilet has to come out, it goes back in working, or a working one is left, the same day.
Each tap or cistern repair is priced as a job before it starts, not timed by the minute.
Cartridges and valves matched to the fitting, so the repair lasts as long as the original.
Water shut off at the angle valve, spills mopped and old parts taken away.
It depends on the toilet, whether the new pan lines up with the existing waste, and whether the floor needs making good. The fitting labour is a fixed job price and the toilet is itemised separately, both quoted before work starts. More on call-outs and job pricing is on the plumber prices page.
One of two parts has failed. Water spilling over the overflow means the inlet valve will not close; a trickle into the pan with the level below the overflow means the flush seal is worn. The lid comes off and the answer is visible.
It can be. A slow trickle adds up to thousands of litres a month, and at the City's stepped tariff a single running cistern can add hundreds or more than a thousand rand to a monthly account.
Repair it if the tap body is sound. A washer, ceramic disc or cartridge is a fraction of the price of a new tap. Replacement makes sense when the body is corroded or parts are no longer made for it.
Usually the seal or connector between the pan outlet and the waste pipe has failed, or the pan has moved. It needs attention quickly, because the water gets under flooring.
The cartridge inside has worn. Replacing the cartridge with the correct one for the make stops the drip and usually restores smooth temperature control.
In most cases, yes. A like-for-like replacement is normally done in a few hours, and the bathroom is left with a working toilet at the end of the visit.
Yes. You will be told before the visit if the fitting you have chosen needs anything extra, such as a different connector or valve, so there are no surprises on the day.
Get In Touch
Cistern running, tap dripping or a toilet that will not flush? Send the details and we will come back with a price for the repair.