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beowabbitI feel bad grumping after a wonderful four-day weekend, involving a delightful Thanksgiving dinner at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
plumtreeblossom’s, wonderful friends, seeing Beowulf, and all that, especially given that I’ve been posting so little lately.
But I have no toilet.
Well, that’s not quite right; I have a toilet. I just can’t flush it (except with the “bucket of water” method).
See, my toilet tank was a really awful low-water-flow-retrofit design to start with. This did not actually save water in practice. So I'd been wanting to replace the mechanism for a while. On top of that, lately it’s been leaking really badly. But I didn’t want to start messing with it while I had a renter in the house, just on the off chance I messed something up and we were without a working toilet for a few days. I felt kind of dumb about that, because how hard can it be to repair a toilet? But I’m really glad I waited.
See, the old bits were fragile and corroded, and I broke some of them while taking them out. But the bolts that hold the tank onto the toilet bowl, while not fragile, are also corroded, and I can’t unscrew them.
I would try WD40, but it’s 10pm on a Sunday, so there’s no place open I can get it. (And I don’t really feel like going out anyway.) Anyway, that’s the plan (along with a more appropriate screwdriver — the slot in the bolts is almost an inch wide). And if that doesn’t work, I guess I’m looking for bolt cutters and a drill bit appropriate for drilling out the bolts. Only in using those I’d be likely to crack the porcelain, I suspect.
Thursday and Friday were really lovely, though!
(Oh, did I mention there’s some foul stinky black gunk in the tank, too? The weird low-water-flow mechanism meant that there were some spots in the tank where water never really moved, so I think it’s just 10 years or so worth of bacteria. I am very glad I started this project with gloves on.)
plumtreeblossom’s, wonderful friends, seeing Beowulf, and all that, especially given that I’ve been posting so little lately.But I have no toilet.
Well, that’s not quite right; I have a toilet. I just can’t flush it (except with the “bucket of water” method).
See, my toilet tank was a really awful low-water-flow-retrofit design to start with. This did not actually save water in practice. So I'd been wanting to replace the mechanism for a while. On top of that, lately it’s been leaking really badly. But I didn’t want to start messing with it while I had a renter in the house, just on the off chance I messed something up and we were without a working toilet for a few days. I felt kind of dumb about that, because how hard can it be to repair a toilet? But I’m really glad I waited.
See, the old bits were fragile and corroded, and I broke some of them while taking them out. But the bolts that hold the tank onto the toilet bowl, while not fragile, are also corroded, and I can’t unscrew them.
I would try WD40, but it’s 10pm on a Sunday, so there’s no place open I can get it. (And I don’t really feel like going out anyway.) Anyway, that’s the plan (along with a more appropriate screwdriver — the slot in the bolts is almost an inch wide). And if that doesn’t work, I guess I’m looking for bolt cutters and a drill bit appropriate for drilling out the bolts. Only in using those I’d be likely to crack the porcelain, I suspect.
Thursday and Friday were really lovely, though!
(Oh, did I mention there’s some foul stinky black gunk in the tank, too? The weird low-water-flow mechanism meant that there were some spots in the tank where water never really moved, so I think it’s just 10 years or so worth of bacteria. I am very glad I started this project with gloves on.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 04:53 (UTC)I'm glad you can still use it with the bucket method, though; that's way better than having to use the bucket for something else!
If you still lived in Malden, I'd tell you to come over and grab our WD-40, but it's a little far to come from Quincy. :-) Hey, might Zeph have any?
Bleach is really good on mold, mildew, and general accumulations of ick. It might make the job less unpleasant if you get rid of that stuff first.
Good luck fixing it!
It's funny, but I was just talking about you to my parents on the phone today. I called them to tell them to look for Norman in the endzone at tonight's Patriots game, and my mother sniffed, "And what did you do for Thanksgiving -- stay home and eat tofu?" And so I told her where I went and how lovely the people there were and how much I like you and Mare and Honey and how happy I was to meet John and Tom.
So then, of course, my parents wanted to know all about you, and I told them that you had the gift of happiness, before which all other gifts pale. I said that you were a very cheerful person who managed to see the humor in life's little hassles, and when people were with you, they got to be carried along in this little cloud of Jayjoy. They heard all of that and the question about you they wanted answered was, "Is he a good-looking guy?" Why they would think that had anything to do with anything, well, my parents are hopeless. Anyway, a couple of hours later, here you are proving my point, making a fairly cheerful post about a an annoying problem. :-)
Hugs and hopes for good toilet karma!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 12:11 (UTC)This is the best description of
:)
N.
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Date: 2007-11-26 21:43 (UTC)He's one of my favorite people on this earth, but then, I think a lot of us could probably say that. I'm SO glad he's found Mare!
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Date: 2007-11-26 21:45 (UTC)N.
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Date: 2007-11-26 12:50 (UTC)I love this! It's perfect!
(and sorry about the yicky wabbit toilet; I hope that things, um, flow again soon)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 21:11 (UTC)Unfortunately, I don't have any WD40, but I do have a reasonably near completely functional bathroom, thank goodness!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 21:45 (UTC)*smile* Thanks, and you're welcome!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 03:34 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 03:28 (UTC)