Do you ever have one of those days when you’re trying to repair something and nothing goes right? We had that happen two weeks ago when we had to do emergency repairs to our upstairs toilet. Nothing went right.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that every once in a while the toilet tank seemed to leak. This would happen every once in a while. It took me a while to figure out what was happening. As it turned out, it was the rubber gasket between the toilet tank and seat base that was leaking. If a little bit of pressure was applied to the back of the tank it would start leaking. Not fun!
So one Saturday two weeks ago we went to Home Depot and bought all the supplies that we needed to fix the leak. While my husband went to work fixing the toilet I started cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the bathroom faucets, the back of the toilet tank once it was off and I could see how dirty it was and the rest of the bathroom … and then, once he was ready we put the tank with it’s new part back on and tightened everything up and turned the water back on and …. it started leaking. It leaked a lot. Ahaaaaaa!
It seems that Saturday we took the tank off at least three or four times. We fiddled around with putting the gasket on in different ways, and we even got some plumbers putty to put in different areas to see if we could prevent the leak, but it still leaked every single time we put it back on.
It wasn’t until we’d given up and talked to someone at Home Depot again on the following Sunday that we finally figured out how to put the gasket on properly. I know it sounds silly, but the packaging had very basic instructions and we were just putting the gasket on loosely and that’s why it was leaking.
I’m glad that we haven’t had a lot of plumbing repairs to do in our house. We’ve done all kinds of home renovations, but plumbing definitely is not our specialty.
Hello Tricia,
I read your article with a little smile on my face because we too have had the same problem. We live in Switzerland and the WCs here eject either 3 litres or 6 litres for flushing. Our WC leaked, so we bought the repair kit, including new siphon, from the hardware store for $10.
The instructions were on the back of the plastic packaging and the diagram seemed to have been drawn by a 4 year-old boy. So, by trial and error, we inserted the various seals, washers and plastic nuts till the leak disappeared.
Bathroom repairs are the most difficult because water infiltrates easily and it’s hard to realize where’s the leak. I too have a problem with my toilet, but until now i haven’t managed it to fix it myself. Sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do..call a plumber.
I can understand why many people try to do things on their own, but many people don’t realize that trying to save some money by doing it on their own can sometimes cost them much more… not only in money but in time.