Thread: Drop In Toilet Bowl Cleaners do more Harm than Good

I have always used drop in toilet bowl cleaners to help keep the toilet bowls in my house clean. Little did I know this would be the cause of so much pain with frequent toilet repairs I have had to undertake over time. Drop in toilet bowl cleaners often consist of a white bleach like substance in a cake form, which slowly dissolves in the toilet water tank and delivers water with bleach cleaning and germ killing effects with each flush. I used a product from Clorox; the bleach cakes come individually wrapped in plastic pouches. Installing the bowl cleaners is a breeze, simply cut open the pouch and drop the cake into a corner in the toilet water tank. I have to say the product is quite effective. After several uses the toilet bowl remains looking pretty clean.

So why the pain if the product works so well? I noticed that when the bowl cleaner cake is almost completely dissolved, it breaks into small pieces. These small pieces show up in the toilet bowl when the toilet is flushed, and it is not a pleasant site. Another thing that happens is the small bowl cleaner cake pieces end up getting trapped underneath the toilet flapper leaving it in an open position. This causes the toilet to constantly run, which is a waste of water. It is also irritating to hear the constant sound of that leaking water running in the toilet.

Another thing I notices is that after I started using these drop in toilet bowl cleaners is that I often had to replace warped and faulty flappers in all the toilets in the house. I found myself having to replace a flapper every 3 to 6 months, which seemed a bit abnormal. The bleach plus whatever other chemical contained in most toilet bowl cleaners affect plastics and rubber parts that form the inner workings of the toilet tank. In this case, the flappers would always warp resulting in a constantly running toilet. Several toilet repair kits warn against using drop in toilet bowl cleaners for this very reason. Other parts can be affected to. I recently had to replace a broken toilet valve. I suspect that in addition to high water pressure, the chemicals from the drop in toilet bowl cleaner may have contributed to the valve's failure.

While drop in toilet bowl cleaners offer the convenience of cleaning and germ killing with every flush, they do so at the expense of the internal workings of the toilet. This cheap cleaning solution may cost you more in the long run with additional repairs.