KerFlush
I think I finally fixed our 1/2 bathroom! It has been months. Mostly due to abject disinterest on my part, but partly due to simply being a little afraid of the project.
I finally tore down the toilet, breaking it into all of its constituent pieces... the tank came off, I scraped all the silicone sealant off of the base/bowl to detach it from the floor (hot tip: alcohol will soften silicone, but it takes a long time. Turpentine will work faster, but you better have some ventilation). The original problem appears to have been both of the nylon bolts that hold the tank to the bowl had sheared off at the head. I was pleasantly surprised to find two new bolts with washers and nuts for $2.
Once I got that all fixed, I threw on a new wax seal (for good measure) and re-assembled, only to find that the fill valve had apparently built up enough scum/hard water deposits from inaction that it wasn't working. So the tank came back off so that I could get the valve out. Now that I've done it, I realize that I could have just taken the top off of the valve in situ. Oh well, that's one way to learn.
Soaked the valve in vinegar for a few hours, then scrubbed it with a brush to get it all cleaned up. It seems to work now! So I put everything back together and cleaned up. So far, no leaks! The fill valve might be seeping slightly- hard to tell. If it is, then we could waste as much as about a gallon per day. Maybe. It is a really really small leak.
Since I was feeling Joe Plumber-esque, I went ahead and attacked the sink faucet, which is a little wobbly. The good news: I didn't make it any worse. The bad news: I don't think I made it any better. At least it is cleaner now. The problem is that the faucet can rotate on the sink. The cause appears to be that the concrete from which the "counter" is made is very thick and uneven- so the nut on the bottom of the faucet is too far to get a hand/wrench onto it to tighten, and the surface against which it is getting tightened is so uneven that it doesn't clamp down.
Oh well. At least we have a half-bathroom again. Before this we only had THREE bathrooms for the two of us. That extra half-bath should really help.
I finally tore down the toilet, breaking it into all of its constituent pieces... the tank came off, I scraped all the silicone sealant off of the base/bowl to detach it from the floor (hot tip: alcohol will soften silicone, but it takes a long time. Turpentine will work faster, but you better have some ventilation). The original problem appears to have been both of the nylon bolts that hold the tank to the bowl had sheared off at the head. I was pleasantly surprised to find two new bolts with washers and nuts for $2.
Once I got that all fixed, I threw on a new wax seal (for good measure) and re-assembled, only to find that the fill valve had apparently built up enough scum/hard water deposits from inaction that it wasn't working. So the tank came back off so that I could get the valve out. Now that I've done it, I realize that I could have just taken the top off of the valve in situ. Oh well, that's one way to learn.
Soaked the valve in vinegar for a few hours, then scrubbed it with a brush to get it all cleaned up. It seems to work now! So I put everything back together and cleaned up. So far, no leaks! The fill valve might be seeping slightly- hard to tell. If it is, then we could waste as much as about a gallon per day. Maybe. It is a really really small leak.
Since I was feeling Joe Plumber-esque, I went ahead and attacked the sink faucet, which is a little wobbly. The good news: I didn't make it any worse. The bad news: I don't think I made it any better. At least it is cleaner now. The problem is that the faucet can rotate on the sink. The cause appears to be that the concrete from which the "counter" is made is very thick and uneven- so the nut on the bottom of the faucet is too far to get a hand/wrench onto it to tighten, and the surface against which it is getting tightened is so uneven that it doesn't clamp down.
Oh well. At least we have a half-bathroom again. Before this we only had THREE bathrooms for the two of us. That extra half-bath should really help.
Labels: house
# posted by Steve Broyles @ 5/28/2009 10:26:00 AM 
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