Scratch

Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.

Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.

On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.

 

Emergency Plumbing 101

First and formost, as the book says Don't Panic.

Close the water valve closest to the problem. Prompt action here will prevent the need to take classes Decorating After a Flood 101 and Insurance Claims Involving Neighbours 101 through 107.

If you have managed to stop the water going everywhere, congratulations the first section of this course is over. You now have two courses of action. Either

1. Call a Plumber; or
2. Visit the Local DIY store.

Given recent experience I'd recommend the former.

Initially what happened was the part of the flush valve that the handle chain went through snapped off. Not in itself a major water flooding experience. However, at some point the filler valve has become damaged, and attempting to fix the flush valve caused the filler valve to stop working (what can I say but the cistern is diddy only accessible through a 150 mm by 100mm "window" which is smaller than the cistern, and I have large hands). Consequentially the cistern began filling up at a greater rate than water could escape through the overflow pipe.

Having stopped the water, it was apparent that the whole filler part of the system now needed replacing. Unfortunately as it is a built in unit, I couldn't do that without dismantling (read smashing) the whole built in bathroom unit which had been sealed together with mastic. In the end, I purchased a new filler unit (the technical name escapes me) and carefully cut out a panel in the fibreglass cistern to allow me to get to the pipes behind. Replacing this was ok, although I am always suspect about attaching plastic tubes to metal pipes for fear of damaging the threadwork and water leaking everywhere very slowly.

Everything seemed to be ok, so I moved onto the flush valve. Reaching underneath the siphon, I could force the siphon's diaphragm up, allowing me to grab what was left of the flush valve with pliers. With a small bit of drilling, some araldite and some electrical flex, the unit was flushing fine.

Saying that its taken me ten minutes to write this post however, whilst in reality it took me three evenings of work to sort out. The first to stare stupidly at the unit and stop the flooding. The second to install the flow control unit, and the last to repair the flush valve. Not sure how long it will hol, but perhaps I won't have to replace the whole bathroom before Christmas. Fingers Crossed.

8 Dec 2004 9:00 | (0) comments | Things

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