Yeah, I did it! Remember my saying I was going to fix my toilet this weekend? Well I did and I am so proud of myself. It did take three trips to the hardware store but it cost about $7 and took less than an hour. Now I can leave the house without worrying about whether the toilet is running and if I’m going to come home to a mini-flood.
About those three trips to the hardware store. The first one was to buy the flush-fixer kit I thought I needed. Then on Friday afternoon, I was interviewing my handyman about what makes a good handyman – that’s a future post – and at the end of the interview, I told him about my project. Bill being the good, helpful guy that he is, offered to take a look at it.
He explained to me what I’d need to do to replace the flapper which seemed very simple. However, when he saw how the flapper gets caught on the ball float when the toilet is flushed, he said he didn’t think a new flapper would solve the problem. He said there was a different type of flush valve now that didn’t have the ball float. Having total confidence in Bill, that was my second trip to the hardware store.
The third trip to the store came mid-installation when I was having trouble with one part – it didn’t look anything like the diagram in the instructions and was confusing me. At the store – which is a family-owned store – one of the knowledgeable, friendly employees opened up another kit, got out the part I was having trouble with and explained to me what I needed to do. Now, that’s the kind of service I like and that’s the main reason I choose to use this particular hardware store.
There’s lots of lessons in this simple little project that I have procrastinated over for at least six months:
- If you’ve been putting off a project, think about what it is specifically that you’re avoiding. Mine was that I felt this was something I should be able to repair myself but I didn’t know where to begin.
- We can look to others for inspiration – Dawn’s story of fixing the garbage disposal inspired me to contemplate doing this;
- There’s no need to reinvent the wheel – the Internet is an amazing rich source of information – find a good how-to and use that to see how difficult or involved a project might be;
- Be willing to give it a try – you won’t know if you can do it unless you try;
- Be willing to ask for help – talk it over with someone – he or she can help you figure out how to approach it. Most people are very happy to help others but most of us haven’t developed mind-reading skills
- You can always have Plan B in case the project doesn’t go well.
Oh, and by the way, handyman Bill says toilet problems are by far the most common problem he gets called about. He fixed six toilets just last week.