Have any of you ever had this randomly happen?

Was up and around early yesterday morning, decided to use the guest bathroom as to not wake up the better half. I'm glad I did, because there was already quite a bit of water on the floor. 

Anyone ever had a toilet tank just crack for seemingly no reason? It was fine Saturday evening, Sunday morning, now I need a new one. 

That's why you never execute an upper decker after eating Mexican food.

I haven't had it happen to me, but I have heard of it happening in some friends' houses.  Not sure why.

My toilet came with my house over 25 years ago.  Pictures like this worry me when I'm 350+ miles away and my house in empty for two-week stretches... I keep meaning to shut the water off to the toilet when I leave.  

I've never heard of it, although I'm not in a position that I would have heard about it other than here. 

My guess is that at some point over the last x years, either someone put the cover on too hard or there was a manufacturing defect that left a small chip out, and it finally worked out into a crack. I have seen a toilet bowl crack after someone (probably less than 200lbs) sat on it--that was in an absolutely disgusting college house, so who knows what kind of abuse it had lived through; in any case what made it crack (person sitting on it) absolutely should not have cracked it.

Never seen that but somebody showed me a picture where a bowl had a catastrophic structural failure once. I also saw the resulting injury and that E36 M3 was 100% nope.

I've seen a bowl fail from dropping the seat lid. I've never seen a tank fail. 

If you don't use it often, the new valves won't fill the tank without being flushed, so if the tank fails only a tank full of water ends up on the floor. 

Yep, happened to me in our master bath. I was in the bedroom and heard something, looked in to find water gushing onto the floor. If I had not been there it would have just continued running and flooded the house. Weirdest thing ever.

It's the strangest thing. I can see if I had dropped something on it, or maybe if it had been super hot in the house or something. 

But we typically keep the AC at 71, so I wouldn't think there is a big different in water temp. 

At least it's not that big of deal. 

My parents moved to a condo after retirement and the kids moving out.  There were 70 or so units in the development.  When the development reached 20 years old or so, the toilet tanks started breaking in alarming numbers causing many floods.  The insurance company required all toilets in all units that were still original to be changed out.

Wonder if the hole that the lines pass through was tightened too much and it finally let go. 

I wouldn't rule out a fat ass poorly performing an upper-decker, though.

JakeOG said:

My parents moved to a condo after retirement and the kids moving out.  There were 70 or so units in the development.  When the development reached 20 years old or so, the toilet tanks started breaking in alarming numbers causing many floods.  The insurance company required all toilets in all units that were still original to be changed out.

The house was renovated before I bought it due to smoke damage, so the toilets are maybe 2.5 years old at most?

But last week the toilet in our master randomly started leaking from the wax seal. So who knows.

I did finally look around earlier, they appear to be bargin basement Glacier Bay toilets from Home Depot.

That happened at my in-laws house when they were away on vacation. I happened to go to their house and when I opened the door was in disbelief. It was an upstairs toilet. Water was raining from the ceiling, everything was wet, the paint bubbled everywhere. Relatively new house too.

I closed the door, called my father in law and on the way out closed the water main. It was overwhelming. Picked up my brother in law and we both did not even know where to start, water was coming out of the breaker panel!

What a clusterberkeley.

In reply to z31maniac :

What happened? Maybe while ya sleeping you got a hammer and silently slammed it. 

It's never happened to me, but I have heard of it happening, definitely.

DIYKing said:

In reply to z31maniac :

What happened? Maybe while ya sleeping you got a hammer and silently slammed it. 

That is the $64,000 question. 

Used it Saturday evening and it was fine (we had a friend stop by for a bit), woke Sunday morning and it was cracked. 

I don't know if we had a small earthquake, the cat went "HULK SMASH" on it, no idea. 

I have seen one cracked like that new in the box.  Internal stresses and the inevitable flaws can cause it.

This thread about having to replace my toilet started with a cracked toilet tank.  Mine appears to have started at the hole for the handle, but I’d bet internal stresses in the ceramics could cause it to start anywhere.  The toilet was at least 17.5 years old (was there when I bought the house in 2001), and I hadn’t done any maintenance or even lifted the lid off in the recent past.