Being semi-retired now gives me time to repair items around the house. I will relate my latest project for your edification and enjoyment. A few days ago, Ms.Accurate said she noticed a little water behind the master bath toilet. I looked into it, and it all looked dry, but a few days later, same thing. I discovered a few drops of liquid running down the back of the main tank right after flushing. Took the top off and found the fill valve, I think it is called, was spraying water upwards onto the top of the tank, and a little would find its way onto the back of the tank and run down. No big deal, but it needed a new part, so I went over to Lowe's. What do you know, they had a conversion kit to make the toilet into a "dual flush" unit, like some of the more expensive models these days. I could have replaced just the leaking part, but naturally, I had to try this new set-up, since it would save water. I get home, drink a beer, and unpack the eight color-coded plastic bags of parts, select the English languange instruction sheet, and notice it has 41 steps. But how hard could it be? I turn off the water at the wall, sponge out the remaining water in the tank, and disassemble the old parts. There is an adaptor for the seat with plumber's putty on it, I press that on. Install everything, turn on water. The fitting at the bottom of the tank is leaking. The kit did not come with that seal, tersely stating "reuse." Back to Lowe's to get a rubber seal for that area. Reuse, my ***. Oh well, minor irritation. Got back home, drank a beer, Install new seal, turned on water. The old valve at the wall had a built in flex pipe that went up to the bottom of the tank. The extra flexing of removing it the second time must have cracked it. It was spraying water out in a fine mist. Turned it back off, drank a beer. This was starting to become a vexation. Went outside found the water cutoff valve for the house out by the city meter. It was buried in mud and provided the habitat for various gastropods and insects. Charming I dug around it with a screwdriver, only occasionally interrupted by the 24 neighborhood kids playing war games. They all had what appeared to be either assault rifles or handguns, shooting at each other with some kind of small projectiles, plinking against the privacy fence regularly. There were more guns than a Zeta reunion. I survived with only superficial wounds. The neighborhood dogs were not particularly amused, barking nonstop during the melee, adding to the enjoyment of this phase of the repair. Got the water turned off, went back to Lowe's. Lowe's had about 20 different types of bathroom wall cut-off valves, depending on the pipe coming out of the wall. Talked to the plumbing department girl, who was quite knowledgable and helpful. She selected one she thought would be most likely, I bought it and one other I thought was correct, along with a connecting metal braided flex line. That sucker wasn't gonna break this time. Got home, drank a beer, found out plumbing girl was right. Installed new valve. Instructions said to connect the new flex hose with a one-quarter turn, not to overtighten. I tried it, but found I bought the 12" line, which was too long. Back to Lowe's. Bought 9" flex line. This was beginning to try my temper. I was talking to myself, using language that Ralphie's dad in Christmas Story would use working on his furnace. Well, it worked for him. Back home, decided to take a beer break, then install the new connecting hose, tightening 1/4 turn only. Turned it on, what do you know, no leaks. Ran a tissue over the connections, no leaks. Let it sit awhile, no leaks. But...the seat inside the tank was draining down, slowly. Something was wrong. Turned off water at wall, had to think about next course of action, so had a beer. Went back to Lowe's, found plumbing girl. She was very helpful, but the dual-flush product was very new, and she had no experience with it. Said it could be defective, and I could bring it back. Went back home. Drained water out of tank, disassembled parts, thought about it, and had a beer. I decided the seat adaptor thingee might be the problem. I pressed on the plumber's putty seal a lot harder this time, thought it squished down a little more, put everything back together, and walla! I was the idoit. It sealed, no leaks, it even worked. Drank a beer to celebrate. There were still several steps remaining to adjust the amount of each flush and even the water level in the bowl, but that could come later. I was flush with success. I had to take the electric lawn mower in for a recall before the place closed. Loaded up lawn mower, drove over to the Black and Decker place, came right back home. When I walked towards the back of the house, I heard the unmistakable sound of cascading water, like one of those little waterfalls at your favorite sushi house. It dawned upon me this was not a good sign. I made my way back to the bathroom, and there was a small lake in there, and the valve at the wall was gushing out like Spindletop. There were actually fish swimming around, a couple of turtles, and a snowy egret wading in the shallower area. I briefly lost control, screaming cursorial utterances so voluminous and vile three separate neighbors have since erected for sale signs. Earl and Bluto the cats ran for their lives, and did not reappear until a couple of days later. I turned off the valve at the wall, and had a beer. Then a got some sponges and began sopping up the new pond. I always wanted a pond, but somehow envisioned it somewhere outside the confines of the bathroom. That bathroom, it has carpet over about 1/2 of the floor. Wet carpet. Soaked carpet. Pried up the tack strip separating the carpet from the tiled area. Rolled the carpet back, sponged up the extra water, brought out two fans, left fans on for three days. Ms.Accurate was not amused. Something about wanting access to the clothing closet, toothpaste, makeup in the bathroom, stuff like that. Luckily, we have a comfortable couch. I found the new flex pipe was the source of the leak, and when the instructions said 1/4 turn tight by hand, they only meant on one end, not the other. That wasn't quite enough on the other end. Why it didn't leak while I was home, I don't know. Anyhow, dried the rug, dried the floor, dried the padding, reinstalled all, and tightened the flex pipe. Turned water back on-it works great now! I tell you, there's nothing like the satisfaction of a well-done self home repair project. Think I'll celebrate with a beer or two.
i suspect the problem was not enough beer to start with. you might want to remedy the situation for the next time...
Been there, done that! Many times. One would think I would learn...not sure what but there is bound to be something learnable in all my return trips to Lowe's and Home Depot. The person at the return desk knows me by name. The rest know me by reputation. I don't drink much. Maybe that's the problem.
Toilets are finicky beasts. If you figgered it out, you have my respect. You already did, but now more.
I am going through this sort of thing with a sink at the present time. The right side of the sink, the one with the disposal, leaks water. It is only when the reservoir to the disposal gets over filled to a certain point. I have tightened the screws around the unit, the seals along the pipe and to the unit itself. Next try is the gasket around the thing but if I do that I may as well buy a new one, right? It is over ten years old and while it is not used all that much it's probably used more than I think it is. I don't want to call a plumber but for water things I prefer pro's. Example: sliding shower doors. Not going through the hassle of lining the frame up and getting right size. No. Buy it, have somebody put it in and get it right or they do it again. Then I can have beer for the whole process to get me ready for when I have to pay.
I'm available to consult on this project at a nominal fee. As you can see, I know all about these plumbing doo-dad thingee stuff.
Actually, disposalls have a fairly wide range of prices, there are cheap ones and better, supposedly quieter ones. Unless the actual body of the unit is rusted out, there are just two places to leak-out the side where it goes into the sink drain pipe, and up at the top where the unit attaches to the bottom of the sink. On mine, where the side pipe comes out, there is a rubber connector with two little clamps. If that is ten years old, it may be cracked. Undoubtedly a cheap part. Same on top of the unit, there must be some seal that probably costs $2 between the top of the unit and the bottom of the sink. You could change it. What could possibly go wrong?
man, there are times, too often than I like, where I say to myself, "will, you suck at life". Fortunately, home improvement isn't one of those times. My career is in the shitter, but I take a lot of pride in fixing my own shitter, much as accurate probably did fixing his own cars.
Yeah, replacing the gaskets would work although turning off the water and removing the old gaskets might save you multiple trips to Lowes. I think if it was me, and the unit was old, I would just get a new disposal from Sears and replace the whole thing. Of course, like accurate, you could run into new problems with leaking pipes, etc.
Murphy's Law of DIY home repair ... Any DIY project you decide to undertake will result in multiple visits to Home Depot / Lowe's / Ace Hardware.
I have a story like that. After driving horrible civics/corollas with hundreds of thousands of miles on them and numerous major problems (the civic had no starter so I had to bump start it for over a year), I finally got a nice car at around age 26. It was a used Infiniti, but might as well have been a Rolls compared to what I was used to. Anyway, I thought, "I'm taking care of this baby. Gonna change the oil with the latest, greatest synthetic." Car was too low to the ground to lie on my back under it and get to the plug. So went to Sears and bought a couple little ramps to drive it up on to. Got home and found out the car's front spoiler hit the ramp before the wheels did. Had to rig up a way to first drive up onto some scrap lumber in order to get the front end up enough to then wedge the ramps under the tires and drive onto those (looked pretty white trash). Then discovered that the oil filter required a special Infiniti wrench to get the old one out. Simple little oil change ended up taking 2 trips to Sears, one to AutoZone, one to the dealership. Spent a couple hundred dollars, trashed up my driveway with lumber scraps and a ghetto-looking homemade ramp, bought a few tools that didn't do the job, wasted a couple of days running around like a jack ***. Years later I gave the little ramps to a friend of mine just to get them out of the garage so I didn't have to see them anymore.
I'm currenly undertaking the fun task of framing a double-hung door. I thought a single door wasn't too hard to do, so how much harder could a double door be? MUCH harder. For every shim i install, two more are needed to level or plumb what I previously had in the right spot. Two evenings into project, and 3 trips to HD. 4th trip planned this evening, likely followed by the 5th trip before the weekend, and that rough opening will probably still not have a door hung in it on Monday. Fortunately, the handyman can come laugh at me, stick out his greasy hand, take my cash and have that sucker up in under an hour, trim and all.
Coming up the next two days: primer some walls inside knock out a wall in the bathroom to double the size of it snip some nails sticking out of some studs exposed possibly wall mount tv address leak issue in kitchen sink and get use of both sides
loop, if you haven't already done so, go to monoprice.com to buy your TV mount and HDMI cables. And, try Powerbridge solution if you don't already have an electrical outlet on the wall behind where your TV will hang.
dal, thank you! That will for sure be where I get a mount from. I don't have the outlet concern where the tv is being moved to but there are a couple of other things I was pondering what I would do for an outlet. Not anymore so it helped a lot. You have done your good deed for the week. Take the rest of it off, my permission. Thanks.
Accurate, thanks for the story. In comparison, It makes me feel so much more adequate in my frequently failing attempts at home repair.
Glad I could be of service. Now I'm almost finished painting one room-which involved installing a bunch of screws in the sheetrock on the ceiling and smoothing over the holes, priming, painting (of course four different paints). This all started when the popcorn texture was removed from the ceiling a few years ago, finally finishing some rooms. I think my neck has reset at a 45 degree angle looking upwards.
Sorry to hear about your neck. I'm on the 4th shade of 'brown' in my master bathroom now and hoping to keep it. I don't have much hope...
