Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Toilet Humor

Argh.  I'm on my third round of trying to situate the toilet tank upstairs after it started leaking.  And I still have a small leak coming off one of the bolts.  At least the first two times, it's pretty obvious that what was going on was the tank-to-bowl washer or spud gasket was slipping off the threads and finding its way down into the inlet and getting stuck.  Meaning I was both not getting a seal and forming a seal between the water and the inlet outlet (think about it, it makes sense), pushing the water out of the inlet, paste the spud gasket, and shooting out between the tank and the seat.  Water freaking everywhere.

That's resolved with a new spud gasket that's not prone to slip, but one of the bolts felt like it had a drop of water on it, and one was moist.  Meaning they're not tight enough.  But I'm not sure if they're not tight enough between the wall of the tank, or if they're not tight enough further below where the bolts go through the seat.  I'm going to hope it's the second option and that letting them sit with some water and then doing a bit of incremental tightening a few times while watching my iPhone level will get it all sorted out within a day or so.

Toilet handiwork aside.  The worst part had nothing to do with repairing it three times.  It had to do with the fact that one of my nieces or nephews peed in it while it wasn't functional.  There were screwdrivers and wrenches and toilet bits all over and still someone peed in it.  And when it didn't flush, didn't mention it.  So it sat there for a week or however long it was there and went moldy.  Gross!  Easy enough to fix with a big bowl of water and some cleaner, but still disgusting.  And I didn't realize there was a problem until a few minutes into repairs when I could smell the nastiness because I was down under the tank.

I'm off to pray to the gods of desiccation.

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