What Causes A Toilet To Break?

Few home repair issues seem more urgent than a broken toilet. Knowing what causes a toilet to break may help you keep yours intact. Porcelain toilets can crack or break easily if you do not treat them with care. Every time you move the toilet, install new parts, unclog the toilet, or just use it on a daily basis, you need to avoid certain practices and activities that will break the toilet, which you will have to replace.

Here are some of the causes of a broken toilet — and how to remedy them.

Toilet bowls and tanks have cold water in them constantly. Any sudden, dramatic change in temperature could cause a break.

Some people may pour hot or even warm water into the tank or bowl to remove a clog or clean the toilet. Pouring warm or hot water into the toilet will cause the toilet's porcelain to expand rapidly, and the porcelain could crack. You can unclog or clean a toilet without using hot water and cracking the toilet, which will ruin the toilet completely. Likewise, a toilet may break if the water in its bowl or tank freezes.

What causes a toilet to break? Young kids are one likely culprit. Any blow from a heavy or sharp object, such as scissors or even your feet, can crack the toilet's porcelain. This is one of the reasons that parents of young kids may want to teach kids not to run or roughhouse in the bathroom. Inadvertently kicking, slamming into or jumping on the toilet could break it.

While you're thinking about what causes a toilet to break, don't forget to look up. A decorative shelf or heavy piece of art that hangs over the toilet could crack the porcelain if it falls. Also, don't store heavy objects on the toilet's tank cover. This can cause enough pressure on the toilet to break it.

When you install new parts in the toilet tank or are removing or reseating the toilet, always be careful with your tools. Hitting the inside or outside of the toilet tank or bowl can crack the porcelain since the tools are made of metal and are often quite heavy. Stop turning wrenches well before the handle has a chance to contact the toilet. Never use a hammer to tap any part of the toilet into place.

When you install a toilet, you must tighten nuts onto bolts to anchor the toilet tank to the bowl and secure the bowl to the floor. Under-tightening the nuts onto the bolts will allow the tank to wobble or the toilet bowl to rock, leading to leaks and other problems with the toilet's operation. Over-tightening the nuts, though, will crack the toilet. When you are tightening the nuts onto the bolts, stop once you feel resistance from the nuts, meaning you have tightened them enough.

Sometimes, a toilet breaks simply because of age. Years of use may eventually cause the toilet to crack, especially in older toilets made of different materials than the ones used now.