Adventures in minor plumbing repairs

OK, for weeks now, I have listened to the constant drip, drip, drip of the toilet in the main bathroom. I could hear it while I was working (WITH MY NOISE FILTERING HEADSET ON), I could hear it when I was putting around in the kitchen, I could hear it when I was sorting laundry, I could hear it when I was freaking asleep for crying out loud! That sucker was driving me absolutely crazy!

Every time anyone would flush, they would have to take the top off the tank, bend the float arm and cross their fingers and hope that the dripping would stop...if not, repeat the process.

This went on for a few weeks until one day, when I was adjusting the float arm, the stupid plastic screw....yes, I said plastic....good old American craftsmaship....popped and shattered into pieces, effectively ending the miserable life of that particular fill valve.

Enter repair kit number one. This is the part where I realize how deficient my tool kit is. The only tool required for a toilet repair job is a crescent wrench and guess what I DON'T have in my tool box...you guessed it, a crescent wrench. I'm trying to do this on a shoestring budget and said shoestring is about the size of a piece of vermicelli. After calling literally everyone in my phone book, I just gave up, shut off the water and said...OK folks, we're down to one toilet until I can obtain the necessary tools or until that miserably scrawny money tree begins to sprout! Great solution....while it lasted.

So I'm laying there, in the middle of a deep and restful sleep and I hear.....drip, drip, drip! I wake up in a cold sweat like I had been jolted from some horrible nightmare, only to realize that the fill valve in the toilet in the master bathroom has channeled the spirit of her dearly deceased sister fill valve in the main bath and is back to haunt me.

Enter repair kit number two AND a recently acquired crescent wrench. Do you know what you have to do to replace a tank kit? I do! Fun job! First, you turn off the water supply, then you flush the tank to empty it out and then you soak up the remaining water with a sponge. Once you have completed the aforementioned steps, you have to contort into an impossible position (no wonder plumbers have cracks....their bodies have split down the fault line!) just to get the wrench around the gasket under the tank.

Installing the replacement kit is an exercise in frustration too because some technical writer, in their infinite wisdom, assumed that the party/parties reading the "step by step, easy to follow instructions" would be teenagers with perfect eyesite. Hello?? Have you met any teenagers?? Not likely you will under the tank of a toilet either. Oh, and guess what? The replacement fill valve is 2 inches longer than the original and so the new float arm has to be bent into almost a right angle to keep the water from going over the top of the overflow tube.

OK, long story short (I know, too late already). After shelling out cash that I only pretended that I had, (sometimes you just have to overdraw.... or build an outhouse....because they will laugh you right out of the store if you try to pay with the money from your LIFE game....this I know) we (Ingrid, Joshua and I) managed to replace the the entire tank mechanism in both toilets.

Standing back and admiring our handywork and after a round of congratulatory high fives, we hear.....drip, drip, drip! I don't remember renting out a room to Stephen King for crying out loud! The repair job has now surpassed the original problem in magnitude, which often happens when you try to fix something and you have no clue whatsoever about the care and maintenance of that item.

Enter repair kits number three and four. Home Depot is my friend, Home Depot is my friend, Home Depot is my friend. Repeat this litany every four hours as needed and call me in the morning. Anyhoo, the nice man in the orange apron tells me that there is a better way....WAAAAAAAAAAW (by the way, that was the closest thing I could come up with to mimic a choir of angels singing from on high) and he shows me this nifty little one piece marvel that eliminates...OK, hold on to your hats for this one....the whole float ball/arm assembly ENTIRELY!!!!



Can you freaking believe it?? It's this little drum thingy (that is a technical term) that slides up and down on the shaft of the Fill valve and you can adjust it to your desired fill height and voile! No more ball! This little gem is easier to install, except for the contortionist routine and trust me, you ain't gettin' around that part baby, it works flawlessly, fills quietly and I haven't heard a single drip since......The End!

Now on to the leaky refrigerator!