Thursday 24 August 2023
The flush mechanism for our downstairs loo has broken. My friends Su, Will and Ella were visiting for a few hours on their way further north on Friday and fortunately I was showing them round the house so discovered that the flush was still pouring water, roughly an hour and a half after I’d last used it, and fortunately not in the midst of a water shortage. And fortunately while I had a practical friend visiting, Will. He fixed it. The following day, before Carla arrived and before Mitch (handyman/’estate’ manager/fixer) would be working, I decided to use the flush to ascertain whether it was fine. It wasn’t. In fact, the flush button would not work (I repeated what Will showed me he’d done) and flush water would not stop pouring down the loo. I went outside and turned the stopcock off, but kind of forgot that wouldn’t be a satisfactory fix until I failed to get a glass of water out the tap, the dishwasher stopped and I couldn’t wash my hands.
I didn’t know what to do and Chris was in London (and anyway even less practical than I am). I feel bad that my first thought was to ask Mitch, which I did. He’s not someone attached to their mobile phone, and anyway he’s not on call and one of two toilets not working is not an emergency. While waiting for an (impossible) magic fix suggestion from him, I Googled, which took me to YouTube, which took me to Vince. Vince is great. He appears to have the same flushing problem as we do (well, he at least pretends to for the video). Thanks to Vince, I discovered how to isolate the water supply to that loo (one of those really annoying covered cisterns that makes access problems more difficult than necessary). About 20cm down the pipe out the cistern is a join with a simple ‘tap’ that can be turned off and on by a quarter turn with a flat head screwdriver. The achievement of being able to isolate the water supply to the loo was immense, so much so that my work was done for the day and I felt mildly pleased with myself for being able to tell Mitch when he read and responded to my plaintive message that I’d stopped the water supply (and, ahem, could he try to fix it the following day).
Not only was Mitch unable to fix it without a new part, he also announced he wouldn’t be back for two weeks. I know, it’s not a crisis being one of two toilets down, but it is massively annoying. Anyway, I’m now in possession of the part, which looks (is) different to the old one. Both Vince and Mitch have confirmed my suspicions that the removal of more than is currently removed is necessary and that that requires fiddly manoeuvres within the casing around the cistern. I am determined to do it. It strikes me as something that isn’t massively difficult, the fitting of the part, but which requires working blind in terms of access to the bottom of the cistern. In my breaks today, I will largely be watching Vince on YouTube and cursing enclosed toilet cisterns. Due largely to the spare part looking different to the old part in what seem to me to be key places, I am not optimistic the toilet will be working within the week and a half before Mitch is next here and working his magic on everything that needs fixing and making. But without doubt I will be massively puffed up and “I am a plumber” if I get it fixed. Chris is now back and seems completely disinterested in trying to steal plumbing glory from me. I would probably happily relinquish plumbing credentials for it to be fixed though.
