I am not a very handy fellow. I have replaced washers in faucets, replaced shower heads, hung pictures, change out light switches – once I even changed out a few outlets. But I leave the difficult tasks to those who know what they’re doing, so I don’t have to pay extra to have someone fix my mistakes.
It seems that each time I try my hand at something new, I’m reminded of a saying my friend Tom Kyte has: it isn’t what you don’t know that hurts you, it’s what you know that just ain’t so. Or in other words, it’s the things you “think” you know that harm you much more than the things you don’t know at all.
Case in point: the toilet in my half bath upstairs was having an issue for several weeks now where the flapper was just not sealing in the tank anymore. Add to the scenario that the toilet in question is fairly old, and you have an interesting repair job. I did what any guy who isn’t handy would do: I procrastinated hoping the problem would simply go away. It did not. I proceeded to step two of the “Guy Who Isn’t Handy” guide to repair situations – I went to Wal-Mart, found a flapper that claimed to be a “universal fit” for old and new toilets alike. Got it home, opened it and read the instructions, went upstairs and found ….. it isn’t as universal as they would like you to believe. It wasn’t even CLOSE to a good fit.
So, on Saturday afternoon I take a short drive up to the local ACE Hardware store to see what I can do. They sell me (at $3.99 plus tax) another flapper that looks more like the one I currently have in the tank. I take it home, finally manage to wrangle the old flapper out (which was a bit easier than I thought it would be) only to find – you guessed it – the new one is about an eighth of an inch too short to seal the valve. Back I go, where they then try to sell me a $9 tank repair kit, complete with putty sealant and a new self-contained hinged flapper. Seemed a bit more than I thought I could manage so I declined to see what else I could do. I take yet another short ride down to another hardware store in town, with the old flapper in hand. After a minute or so of discussion, the fellow helping me suggests that, instead of trying to replace the entire unit, why not just replace the tank ball on the existing flapper? After all, it DOES come off.
Thud. Sound of jaw hitting the floor. Too simple. Much too simple. So, after a $3.49 purchase of a new tank ball I trundle back home, where within fifteen minutes I now have a normally functioning toilet again.
If I had JUST taken the time to really examine the problem, taken the old flapper out and really looked at it to see what was needed, I could have saved myself time, aggravation, and about a couple of gallons of water.
It’s not what you don’t know that hurts you.
