I have a Korky Fill Valve in my house that operated smoothly for 12 years, so when my elderly mother called me to complain about her constantly running toilet I had no hesitation of what fill valve to buy to fix her toilet. I normally prefer to buy things on Amazon but with a toilet emergency there is no time to waste and I headed to my local home improvement store. To my surprise a price there was actually a few dollars cheaper.
I am not a very handy person, yet Korky valve was fairly easy to replace. There was only step that took a bit of effort. I including a collage of two photos which I will be referencing in this review.
1. Started by turning off the water supply (turning the valve clockwise).
2. I put a small plastic bin under the toilet to catch water coming out of supply hose
3. I disconnected the supply hose, it held about a cup of water that spilled into the bin
4. I flushed the toilet and using some old rags mopped up the water that still remained in the tank
5. The next step was to remove the old valve: I removed the overflow tube for the valve and the flapper. The final step in removing the old valve was to remove the nut holding the valve to the tank from below. This was the most difficult step of the entire process. I used large wise grips and turn the nut clockwise. This took quite a bit of effort. The nut is plastic so I had to be careful not to strip it.
6. The next step was to set the new valve to the right height. This is the most important step for proper operation of the valve. I inserted the valve in the tank, unlocked it by turn counter-clock wise, lined up the bottom of the white cap of the valve with the top of the overflow pipe, and then locked it by turning clock-wise. Then I carefully removed the valved from the tank and inserted a provided plastic pin to hold the valve at the proper height for my tank. The trick to having the pin stay in place is aligning the bumps on the stem of the valve with the holes on the pin. You can see the bumps and the holes in photo#1 (I put red squares over the hole and bumps in the photo so you can find them easily).
Note: The first time I turned on the water for the test, the clip holding the right height for the valve got dislodged and this would have caused the continuously running toilet. After I disassembled the valve and made sure that bumps on the stem went into the holes on the clip, the clip held the valve securely.
7. Once the height of the valve was set correctly, I inserted the valve, but did not tighten it fully yet.
8. The next step was to position and shorten the overflow tube. This black tube is long so it would fit different toilets. It should be just long enough to empty into the overflow pipe. I changed the angle of the valve in such a way that the black tube was aimed into the overflow pipe and had no kinks. I shortened it to end just above the overflow pipe and then used the provided pin to attach it to the overflow pipe. You can see the pipe position in Photo #2.
9. At this point I was almost done and hand-tightened the nut that holds the valve to the toilet. I used a rag to get a good grip on the nut, and turned it as far by hand as I could.
10. Next it was time for a test. I turned on the water just a little bit to see if anything leaks and works properly. When everything worked well, I turned on the water at full force.
If you also changed the overflow pipe in the toilet make sure that the level of the flush lever opening is above the overfill pipe in the the tank. Otherwise the tank will fill to level opening and will leak through that opening to the floor. The top of overflow pipe should be 3/4" or more below flush lever opening.
The installation took me about 30 minutes. Everything has been working smoothly and quietly. Both my mother and I are very pleased! I hope she gets as many as years out of her Korky as I got from mine.
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.
Ali Julia review ★★★★★
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