Thanx to a iced kaffe mocha at Starbucks I was not able to fall asleep until midnight. We (my wife and I) went to see a performance at church that was put on by the kids who attended Vacation Bible School. My wife was one of the assistants for expressive dance class and I went to support her. Not my original plan, but that is life...besides, I love my wife.
While I was trying to fall asleep, I noticed that something had bitten my ankle. While it looked a lot like twin pimples or large fire ant bites, my guess it was the spider my wife killed the next morning.
I woke up tired and a tad cranky but that soon passed. A pot of strong coffee helped clear away the cobwebs that accompany me when I get too little sleep. I started the watering the foundation of our house with soaker hoses and then hit the road with my dogs. Coffee would be ready for me when I came back.
My day would consist of a few minor repairs and a trip to Home Depot. Of course I would need to strip and make the beds as usual and vacuum the house, but I wanted to get the other "little" repairs out of the way.
The first "repair" was to replace the speaker socket covers with plain white ones without speaker holes. I recently changed the location of the speakers and no longer needed the wires sticking out of the wall and I did not want to permanently patch them in case I changed back to the original location. This was very easy, but the new cover was wider than the old one and did not fit. I contemplated trimming it down, but after looking around, I realized that I could just switch one of the narrower ones with the new one. They all looked the same, they were just different widths. Job one had been accomplished.
I started job two, replacing the toilet fill float valve right after my wife left for aerobics. The job started off pretty well, and when I made the first test flush, I noticed the toilet refused to shut off on its own. The flapper refused to go down. Nothing I could see was blocking it, so I played with it for a while and even went as far as change the flapper out for the spare I had (just for emergencies. The new flapper did not work but as I was watching the tank attempt to fill, I noticed something. The water from the fill valve was rushing in at a high rate directly at the flapper, causing it to "float". OK, I now knew what I needed to do. I turned the water back off and loosed the float and turned it about 45 degrees so the jet would not rush directly at the flapper. When I tried to turn the water back on, I noticed something I was not expecting to see. It appears that the packing in the shut off valve is worn out so when you close the valve completely, it drips. Not good. We always turn off the water when we travel and this would be a big problem in the future. I noticed that if I turned the valve *almost* off, if did not drip, but the water was not completely off, either. I will definitely need to replace that before we go on vacation next year.
Now a question. WHY are toilets always installed in such a way that the shut off valve is in a corner or very hard to get to? Every toilet in every home I have lived in or had to work on (in my mothers case) toilet is in a corner or is in a tight spot that is difficult to work on. I thought I was going to break my neck when the water line began to spray water and I jerked my head out of that very small work space. While I did not break my neck, I did bust my lip. Yeah, I know, very funny.
All in all I hate doing plumbing work. It has never gone very well except once, when I replaced the sink/faucets in the kitchen a few years ago. That was almost error free.
I rounded out my day by vacuuming the house, washing up some dishes, and doing some laundry. I have been busy and I am a bit tired. Maybe a nap is in order? No, not yet...I still have to make the bed...darn.
No comments:
Post a Comment