Does Martha fix toilets?

If so, we sure could have used her in the upstairs bathroom. The toilet had been running and running. To solve the problem, the hubs and I decided to simply turn the water off. Problem solved!

But then, we had company coming in from out of town, so that toilet had to be fixed. Really fixed.

We got out a How To Fix Everything In Your House book. You have one of these in your house, right? Everyone does. I think we own 10-12 of these fix-it-yourself books. And all of them were gifts from friends and family.

Aside from hanging curtains, we're just not terribly handy here.


After much thought, some poking around and an outside consultation from my uncle, we decided that the tank needed a new floaty ball thingy and a new seal.

The floaty ball thingy was easy enough to replace, but we had a real problem replacing the seal. Mainly because we couldn't figure out how to get the apparatus on top of the seal off of it.

You know, the big white column apparatus thingy.

In the picture below, see the orange seal at the bottom of the tank? Now, see the white column thingy on top of it? That's the thing we couldn't get off.

Don't you just love my terminology? Like I said, we're just not that handy here.

Hubby's dad came over to show us how to get the white column thingy off. Turns out, you have to pull that hose thing off, unscrew the top, and the whole thing lifts right off. The Big Guy bought a new seal, spent a good twenty minutes getting it into place, and now the toilet runs when it is supposed to, and doesn't when it's not. Which is a very good thing.

I'm proud to say that with a minimum of outside help and less than $4.00 worth of parts, we fixed this toilet all on our own. It's a good thing! And with this project done, we can move on to others...