On Having An Old House

When you buy an old house (70+ years), you get stunning woodwork, amazing artistry, and whacked plumbing.  Our old house was built back in the day when indoor plumbing was new fangled and bathrooms were called “waterclosets” because they were closets literally.  This is all good and well until you have a problem. 

During our recent water debacle, we discovered that one of the toilets “ran.” So we need to replace the rubber stopper of the toilet.  But, of course, you can’t do that because those kinds of stoppers haven’t been made since...well, no one knows when they were last made.  So the “guts” of our water closet’s toilet need to be replaced.  That means that you literally have to take the whole toilet apart. So much more easily said than done. 

First of all, a water closet is NOT a standard size closet.  It’s the size of a closet when people owned two sets of clothes, work clothes and Sunday clothes, so you didn’t need a clothing rod, just shelves.  Shelf width is the width of our WC—each side of the toilet touches the respective wall.  And it’s not long either. If you needed to, you could almost wash your hands while you sat on the potty.  Not easy fit for two adults, various tools, and flashlights (because, of course, the lights in the WC have decided to be fitful at the same time as the toilet).  And it’s taking two adults because these bolts haven’t moved since the Roosevelt administration (?).  Cal’s hands are now covered with desiccated rubber, which is like tar mixed with grease. 

He’s on his way to the hardware store—but it’s only the second time today.  I’m sure the van will take many more trips over the next few hours.  Stay tuned.

Toilets

Our toilet started leaking. This forced a decision. Either get new toilet guts or replace the whole thing with a new toilet, which was offered to us for free. Hmm. A new toilet would probably save on water. New toilet.

Cal took off the old toilet—oops, big problem. The new toilet was missing the tank bolts. Cal reinstalled the old toilet back because it was too late to buy new bolts. The new toilet stood in pieces all over my bedroom. “It’s okay,” I told myself, taking deep cleansing breaths, “it’s only for a few days.”

A few days passed. Old toilet came off. Cal scraped off the old beeswax seal and put on a new one and new bolts. Great. He secured them. I looked at the new toilet. “Uh, honey....”

He knows my tone. “What’s wrong?”

“The arm thingy that holds the float is snapped in half and there’s no float at all.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Imagine me swallowing. “No.”

“Right. Let’s go to Ace Hardware.”

After a trip to Ace, Home Depot, and Lowes, we discovered they don’t make plastic “float arms.” Instead, they sell you new toilet guts. We returned home with new guts. Cal replaced everything. He turned the water on. The stalk thingy leaked.
He tightened it. Water back on. The valve for the water line leaked.
He replaced the line. He turned the water back on. It was dry. Yay!! I cleaned the new toilet, mopped the floor, and arranged the flowers on the back of the tank.

A few minutes later, it was leaking again. This time water leaked from the tank-bowl bolts. Another trip to Ace Hardware for new rubber seals. About this time I took Ariel to violin lessons—I was never so glad to have to go to music lessons.

I don’t even want to go into the fact the floaty thing won’t adjust properly. I read the directions, but after thirty seconds I realized that the directions were written by someone for whom English was a fifth or sixth language. I think we need to re-adjust the height of the stalk thingy, which would loosen all the seals that Cal just fixed. Instead, we’re just going to learn to hold the handle down for an extra second or two. So much for saving water.