There was a blissful period of time, right around
Thanksgiving, when outside interests ceased draining our time and attention. Suddenly those little issues around the house that had sat on the back
burner, made their way into our consciousness. One of those things was the slow leak in the first
floor powder room toilet. A simple
examination of the toilet tank revealed that the rubber flush flap
was leaking, probably due to age. This is the story of how a $3.47 plumbing part became a
$2,000 Christmas “present.” This is the
story of the Christmas flap.
As I mentioned, outside pressures were relieved for all of us, so even my husband started to notice little things around that time that needed attending to. What he noticed was that I had not reconnected the flush handle chain at EXACTLY the same length as it had been before. I guess once you get used to the flush handle engaging in a certain spot it is like Chinese water torture to feel it engage a little later. This sent him into the tank to tinker, which then led to a stripped plastic screw on the ballcock causing the tank to now run continuously, and not just a little. It was flowing a lot - audibly so.
This necessitated a replacement of the entire flush
mechanism which, it just so happened, I already had in reserve in the
basement. Accomplishing this transfer
should have been another 20-25 minute job.
The first step was to turn the water off to the tank. That is when I realized
just how long we had been neglecting this particular toilet. The water supply valve required a wrench to move it
from the position it must have been stuck in for the last 15 years. The rusted weakened valve, grateful to have
been relieved of its duty to control the flow of water, promptly failed. We now had a toilet with a broken valve in
the tank that let water keep flowing in from an on/off supply valve that no longer had
an "off" position.
So, after turning off the water to the entire house, I made
another trip to Home Depot to see if I could find a replacement supply valve. It probably would have been a good idea if I
had brushed the accumulated fuzzy dust off the valve that was in place when I looked at it
before I left. Then I would have known the trip would be wasted. Our supply valve was sweated on to a copper
pipe. We had left the realm of self home improvement and moved into the field of professional
plumber. While the water was off I put
in the new ballcock, following the directions as best I could. You see, the directions assume you have a
working supply valve so that small adjustments do not have to be made between
trips to the basement to turn all the water to the house back on. This would turn out to be a problem later, as
you will see.
A confident plumbing professional was able to come the next day
and not only replace my supply valve, but give me one that, should it fail
again (and he assured me it would), I could replace myself. It is nice to meet a professional who
recognizes those of us with strong self reliant streaks who would like to not
have to wait for them again. Feeling the need to justify the exorbitant figure
he was about to charge me, he gave the
toilet a complete check up: something like a 75,000 flush maintenance program I guessed.
That was when he noticed that the new
ballcock mechanism I had installed was already clogged with sediment, something that would
have been avoided if I could have turned the supply valve on slowly as the
directions suggested. He said it was
causing the stack to leak. So basically
we were back to the slow leak that started this whole mess.
He also delicately informed us that our commode was the, “cheapest
stool a builder can install,” further
noting that this particular brand was especially prone to clogging. Hah, I thought. I didn’t need a professional to tell me
that. I was already very familiar with
this particular plumbing fixture’s predilection for clogging. He
suggested a complete replacement of said toilet. I thanked him for his frank appraisal, and sent him on his way, along with $180.
So back to Home Depot, this time with my husband. We were
actually there to get a couple strands of Christmas lights for our Christmas
hedge, but as long as we were together, we thought we’d see what was available for the powder room. There we
stood, on date night, in the plumbing aisle, staring up at the dozens of
gleaming, mostly white, porcelain bowls on display trying to decide which one would be best. Until that moment, I had not realized how little I have paid attention
to the amenities and abilities of modern indoor flushing technology. Imagine my surprise to read, on one of the
handy features tags that manufacturers supply, “4x more powerful than any human
needs.” Another one promised to flush "10
golf balls in a single flush." Good
lord! What has happened to the human digestive tract? Was the country’s current
obesity epidemic causing a subsequent engineering challenge to our waste
engineers? Apparently, challenge met.
We selected a mid range toilet that could handle even a week of
pork dinners and notable lack of roughage. My husband then surprised me with his sensitivity
when he mused that the new toilet would look rather out of place with the old
fashioned towel bars and toiletpaper holder we had. Heaven forbid we have amenities
from different eras in the same room. So,
on we went to the bath fixture aisle where we selected three pieces to update the
room.
“You know, as long as we are updating the room, we really
should get a new faucet,” he said. Sure,
I thought. Why not. Apparently money, like the water through the ballcock in our toilet, was
flowing freely.
On to the faucet aisle we went to get one that went with the towel bars.
At this point, giddy excitement overtook my normally decorating
demure husband. “As long as we’re doing
some updating….” Updating? I thought we were fixing a broken
toilet! “We should replace the faucets
in the kids’ bath too.” Ok Bob Villa. We haven’t yet mastered replacing the one you
just put in the cart 3 minutes ago, but I’m sure we’re just as good as those people on
the Do It Yourself shows. Two more faucets went in the cart. This of course necessitated the purchase of
two new towel bars and towel rings to go with them (see comment about matching era items for the powder room.)
School and the holidays
loomed ahead, and suddenly we were doing a whole house update. I asked my mate, who usually heads to bed around 9:30, if he was planning to relive his college days and pull an all nighter to install everything in the cart as I was not sure how I, who normally takes care of the shopping, wrapping, shipping, baking, writing, and decorating was going to squeeze in this update before the new year. Surrounded by boxes that assured the consumer they could install anything themselves, his confidence was buoyed that he could do most of it. I, however, sensed a conspiracy on the part of the packaging.
We walked out of Home Depot $850 later and tried to load all
this stuff into his Mercedes (remember, we just went to get two strands of lights). Mercedes may be surprised to learn (as I was) that a
toilet does indeed fit in the back seat of an E50.
The next day we began the installations. The powder room faucet was relatively
easy. The kids’ faucets proved a little
more problematic. They required another
trip to Home Depot for some connector hoses. By now, their employees had begun a pool to see how many more times we would be back. I bought the #8 square. A little adjustment with a dremel saw that, surprisingly, was not mentioned in the installation instructions, was all that stood between us and the last new faucet. Armed with
safety glasses and my conveniently small hands, I sawed off a section of chrome
wire that just would not fit with the new faucet set up and, voila, success.
Old towel bars removed. Wall patched. New bars installed. We
were just about there. The only thing left was to paint the walls.
We have painted before, but it has never been
fun. One of us has this thing about
really straight lines where the walls meet the ceiling and one of us thinks that
as long as you can generally see they are on two different planes it’s fine. Seeing
my apprehension, my newly sensitive husband suggested this might be another time
to bring in a professional. I readily
agreed.
I expected the painter to be directed to the powder room
upon his arrival to give us an estimate.
Well, you can imagine my surprise when my husband first showed him the
two story foyer and then asked me what color I thought would be good to paint it. This update was spreading. It was starting to get out of control. I told
him I didn’t care what color it was. I just wanted
the toilet to stop leaking! This tirade from left field threw him a little.
It also turns out that, like bathroom fixtures, old paint
does not like to mingle with new paint.
Not only would the foyer get a new coat, but so would the front door,
the interior doors and frames, the master bedroom ceiling and, oh yes, the powder room. That room would also get some wainscoating and
a new chair rail. And all of this would
occur just days before we had all the neighbors over for a holiday
gathering. It would also start AFTER I
had put up all our Christmas decorations which would have to come down, again,
for the painters. This update was beginning to have a life of its own and it was severely conflicting with mine.
The painters were wonderfully fast, friendly and competent.
They even helped remove the atrocious old toilet from the powder room so they
could paint behind where the new one would sit.
They left with $1200 and fumes following them. I will get around to putting the new toilet
in tomorrow, the day before company comes so I better get it right or we will be limiting their drinks to reduce their trips upstairs to use the other bathrooms. That would necessitate cleaning up all the bedrooms and I'm afraid what updating we might find needed to be done there.
And to think it all started with a little Christmas flap.
Toilet Flap $ 3.47
Towel Bars $ 150.00
Faucets $ 290.00
Toilet $ 320.00
Paint + labor $1,000.00
Wainscoating $ 200.00
Plumber $ 180.00
$2,123.47
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