Category: House stuff

The pegboard is finally up on the wall, so part of yesterday was spent decorating it with hooks and tools. The workbench area is starting to come together now. I think it looks pretty spiffy.

Now I need to come up with some projects to work on. No doubt the next project I decide to work on will mean having to acquire more tools.

Does anybody else have brown water coming out of their taps?

A call to Charleston Water System‘s emergency line brought me to a helpful lady that told me the fire department had been flushing lines today and that I should run the cold water in the faucets farthest away from the meter for about 10 minutes to flush out the water lines.

The taps have been running for almost 20 minutes now and the water finally seems to be starting to clear up. I have a feeling I’ve also just flushed the lines for the entire neighbourhood considering my house is at the end of the cul-de-sac.

Two years ago the houses on in my area were being sold in the low-mid $200s. Now there are two houses on the market listed for a hair under $300k, and one that just went on the market for a a little over $300k.

Zowie. I never would have thought it would take less than two years for houses around here to break the $300 mark.

Guess it’s time to start thinking about getting some of those upgrades done that we couldn’t afford to do when we bought this place. One of my goals this summer is to finish the hardwood flooring project and fence in the yard. The dogs will like being able to run around in the yard without having to be staked out.

Well, fixing that leak in the toilet ended up being a considerably more arduous task than expected.

• Disassembled the old toilet to replace the wax ring. Still leaked
• Tried another wax ring just in case I didn’t get a good seal the first time. Still leaked.
• Discovered a small crack at the base of the toilet. Ick.
• Go to Lowe’s to buy a new toilet and tank.
• Get home, install the toilet bowl. Wife decides the round bowl is too small and just won’t do. Much cursing in my brain. Remove everything, stick it back in the box and take it to Lowe’s for a refund.
• Take off to the N Charleston Lowe’s to buy the elongated bowl version (the only store that has it in stock). Get there 10 minutes before they close and buy the last one they have. Also buy yet another wax ring and new toilet seat.
• Get home, discover that I mistakenly stuck some parts belonging to the tank into the toilet bowl box that we returned 45 minutes ago. Crap.
• Go back to Lowe’s in the morning and retrieve the parts.
• Install the bowl. Fill with water to test flushing. No leaks (whew!).
• Install the tank. Connect up water hose and turn the water on. Tank fills, no leaks (happy happy joy joy!).
• Flush when the tank fills. Flushes great, no leaking (happy dance!). Flush a couple more times just to make sure.
• Inform wife. Wife christens toilet. No leaking, although she says it’s taller than expected.

So now we have a new uber-flushing toilet that works way better than the original toilet. Now the wife wants to replace the other toilet.

Finally got around to replacing the wax ring on the toilet this week. Simple enough job.

Unfortunately once I got everything back together and tested, the toilet was still leaking. The wax ring seemed to be sealing everything up just fine. Finally with a little more investigating I discovered the culprit: a tiny 5 mm long crack at the base just outside the wax ring.

I wasn’t able to get a very close look at it without dumping the remaining water out of the bowl, but it looked like it may have been a manufacturing defect.

So I guess it’s off to Lowe’s sometime this week to shop around for another toilet. We’d been meaning to upgrade the toilets anyway…just not quite so soon.