Annoyed

We have plumbing issues in our house. Most recently, the toilet in the master bath was leaking. I could see that it was leaking from where the supply line enters the tank. I also discovered a very slow drip around one of the bolts that holds the tank to the bowl, and it has always leaked from the tank into the toilet (causing the water to run). I decided that I would just replace the whole guts of the tank because I assumed all these leaks were from corroded gaskets/seals/whatnot.

I decided to do it because the last time David attempted this (with the toilet in the other upstairs bathroom) we ended up replacing part of the ceiling of the room below. Note to David: you shouldn’t end up with any leftover parts!

So I spent a couple of hours Sunday working on this thing. I didn’t quite realize that I was going to have to unbolt the tank from the bowl (duh, how else was I going to replace the gasket & the seals around the bolts?) but I managed. My first problem came when I turned off the water with the valve – it didn’t quite turn off all the way. So I worked the whole time with water dripping out of the pipe. The second problem came when I tried to reconnect the supply line – it didn’t line up with the tank! No wonder it was leaking. Someone must have really pulled it over to get it connected before but I was afraid to pull too hard on it. I tried to loosen the tank from the bowl a little to see if the tank would scoot over enough to connect it, but all I managed to do was create a leak around the bolts.

David called a plumber today to have the supply line & valve replaced (we had already done this in the other two bathrooms). That will cost $150. Also, the plumber claims that in order to fix the leaks around the bolts, he needs to unbolt the tank & replace the gasket & bolts with his parts in order to have the warranty. That is another $150. I told David to tell him all those parts are new! David said he had told him (and the plumber said I did a good job by the way) but that was the only way he could fix it. Grr. I said something like I wish I hadn’t wasted my time, and David said, oh no, for him to replace all the other parts in the tank would have been another  $150. Geez! Why am I not a plumber again? Oh yeah, crawling around messing with my own toilet was bad enough, I couldn’t imagine touching someone else’s toilet. *shudder* But damn, that is alot of money! I bought the kit of toilet innards for $25 and took about 2 hours and it would have worked if that stupid supply line had been good.

I thought last night that I should fix the tank back so it wasn’t leaking around the bolts. I wish I had done that. Dammit.

OK, it is time to go and it is raining so hard that I can’t even see out my window, and where is my umbrella? In my car, of course! Once I make it to my car, I’ll have to float home I guess.