The Leaky Toilet

Wouldn’t the title of this blog be an awesome name for bar? I think so. 

Well this whole week has been consumed by the leaky toilet in our downstairs bathroom.  I noticed a week or so ago that there was water on the floor.  I tried to figure out where it was coming from but I was stumped.  Then the floor was dry for a few days and then on Sunday water again, this time a nice big puddle.  Where the heck is it coming from?? 

So I was tinkering around the toilet trying to figure it out (and my goodness Swirl is a messy kitty litter cat…how does he get so much litter behind the toilet?).  I tried turning the shut off valve and it started to leak. Ah-ha!  I found the problem...or so I thought. Eric turned it to the “off” position and I put a pot under there.  We decided we must have a leaky shut off valve.  Well I couldn’t sleep that night, I had visions of water gushing out of the pipe, flooding our downstairs and frying our furnace when it is 5 degrees outside (the furnace room is adjacent to this bathroom).  I kept my ear out for the furnace turning on and off all night.  Monday morning, the pot was dry, not a single drop. Huh? Ok so it wasn’t the shut off valve.

Monday night we came home from work and I went to check out the toilet. I flushed it to clear the tank because as you remember, Eric turned “off” the water.  WRONG!  I flushed the toilet and the water came flowing into the tank, so much for turning off the water. LOL! That was the point I realized that neither one of us are handy mans. And we should never do home improvement project by ourselves. So now that the shut off valve is ruled out, I took my investigation further.   After flushing the toilet I noticed that water was dripping on the floor. It was the handle! I figured it out, the water level was as high as the handle and it was leaking!  So I lowered the water level so it is no longer that high. I flushed the toilet again and made sure the water stop well below the handle.  Problem solved!

...20 minutes later…water on the floor. WTF!!!!  Now I’m getting really pissed at this toilet.  Where the heck is the water coming from?  I still don’t have a clue and I don’t want to bother with it any more. Time to get the professionals and to make easy on me I’m just going to get a new toilet. 

So while other people spend their tax refunds on spring break vacations. I get to spend my tax refund, and take a day off of work, to get a shiny, new…TOILET!