Guess what I did today? I replaced a flush valve! Yeah, I'm pretty psyched, too.You're making fun of me, aren't you? Yes you are; I can hear you laughing from way over here on the other side of the Internet. Fine. But don't come crying to me when your toilet won't stop running and you need a new flush valve assembly.
We have a finished basement which is quite nice when it's not cluttered up with all the stuff we dump there in order to have the rest of the house looking nice, you know, the parts that company actually sees. I did do some cleaning up last week and it's not looking too bad now if I do say so myself. Still some stuff to dump and I've got bags and bags of books that need to go to either the library or a used book store. In the meantime, however, we haven't been able to use the downstairs toilet for months. Mind you, we don't need to all that often. The problem was that it wouldn't stop running so water was being serously wasted. It wasn't a leaky flapper; I checked that first and there was no leak there. Now, you might think of toilets as being complicated affairs, but they really aren't. It's basically just the flush apparatus and the flapper, that's it. And - I found this interesting, maybe you will as well - the basic modern flush toilet mechanism has not changed much since the first patent was issued to Alexander Cummings in 1775. Ha. You thought it was Thomas Crapper, didn't you?
No, I am not a plumber, nor do I play one on tv. But I learned a lot from my dad about how to fix stuff around the house. It's amazing how much the average person can do for themselves, and cheaply! Seriously, I paid about $10 for the assembly and it didn't even require special tools to install. Ten bucks! You couldn't even get a plumber to drive past your house for that! And all the instructions where right there inside the box, easy peasy. I admit I was nervous about doing it and had put it a ways down on my to do list. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and a couple of different DIY websites, I became more confident about my ability to handle it. And it really was pretty easy. Didn't even need a wrench. In fact, the instructions clearly state NOT to use a wrench but to do any tightening required by hand.
Now it's done and I'm feeling pretty darned proud of myself.
3 comments:
Laughing? Not even close. Too busy being impressed. I raise my champagne glass in your general direction. (I would toss down the champers, but alas the glass seems to be empty. How did that happen?)
Do you do long-distance plumbing, just in case?
partu- the opposite of part-me
Also,
do you deliver cheesecake?
abidi - Aye, lass, we'll have the Scottish toilet over here, and abidi in that corner.
long distance? not sure how that would work, but I could probably lend moral support.
No, I don't deliver cheesecake. Just text messages. ;)
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