When it comes to taking care of the plumbing around your home you have a lot of areas to pay attention to. One of those parts of your plumbing that you have to pay attention to are the toilets in your bathrooms. While it is true that they are pretty low maintenance, there are still things you should do to keep them running the way they should and avoid problems that can arise with them. Here are some of the things that you should know about toilets:

Don't flush anything besides toilet paper

Toilet paper is the only thing besides your own waste that you want to be flushing down your toilet. There are a lot of products on the market that claim they are safe for your toilet and while some of this can be true it is always best for you to make sure you err on the side of caution and stick to what's known. Not only can flushing other things like cotton balls and feminine products cause clogs in the plumbing, but they can also have a negative effect on your septic tank if you have one.

Make sure you know the signs of a bad toilet tank gasket

While it's true that a toilet tank gasket is something that rarely needs replacing, it can still happen. It's important for you to know the signs of the gasket needing replacement so you can get it taken care of right away to avoid worse problems. The gasket is located between the tank and the bowl. It can get dry and crack which will lead to the toilet leaking water from there that you will see on the floor. If the gasket needs replacing you can do it yourself by draining the tank, removing two bolts, taking the tank off and replacing the gasket. Or, you can simply have a plumber come out and do it.

Replace the toilet seat as soon as it's needed

If you start to notice that your toilet seat is moving then you can try to tighten the bolts on the back of it, but the chances are good that the seat actually needs to be replaced. Not replacing the toilet seat when it should be can cause an accident if someone goes to sit on the toilet seat and it ends up breaking all the way and they can end up getting injured.