This name originated from Porta John ("Worldwide portable toilet sales...") and my first entry into this blogging world will be just about that. Toilets.
A few months ago, I received a letter on my door. The letter said, "The unit below mine is dripping with water so the tenant came upstairs to see if it was my bathroom that was leaking. My unit is now also covered in water. I believe your unit has a plumbing problem."
You see, I live on the 3rd floor of a complex and apparently the leak was so bad that it went through not only the unit below me, but also down to the ground floor. Well, not exactly my leak, but more so my roommates leak (on his side of the condo). Nonetheless, we had a plumbing problem.
I find out later that the shuttle valve is busted connecting the toilet to the pipe in the wall. This was the reason for the leak. I called up the maintenance guys and they came to the rescue. They were able to replace the valve, but not before going through a huge hassle of turning off the water. [This is a different story...but all the labels in the underground parking garage marking the water for the units is completely wrong]. Problem solved. No more leaks, no more problems.
Until today.
Today as I'm searching for ever-so-cool blogger templates, I hear a knock at my door. It was the gentleman who lived below me. I ask him how he is doing and he says "my ceiling in the bathroom is leaking." I don't understand. I thought this problem was taken care of a few months ago. I then find out that some other plumbers had actually come during the day to do some work. They had shut off all the water and maybe when they turned it back on, maybe the water pressure was so great that it...burst some pipes? I'm not sure. I don't know what to do.
Here was the problem. The toilet has two reservoirs for water. I don't know the technical name, so I'll call the bowl part "bowl" and the part behind it the "tank." When you flush your toilet, bowl is emptied and the water in the tank goes into the bowl. (I think this is how it works...). The tank is then filled up with water until the "flotation thingy" rises up and stops the water. The tank is then filled and ready for the next flush. My roommates tank was filling up, but it wasn't stopping. The "flotation thingy" was up as high as physically possible, but the tank kept filling. It wasn't a huge problem though, because the tank can only fill so high. Once it reaches a certain limit, that overflow gets poured into the bowl. So we were getting constant water flow from the pipes to the tank to the bowl to back down a different pipe. This normally wouldn't be a huge issue (other than the extreme waste of water) because no water is leaking. Well, except for today. See, I believe the pipe after the bowl going back down to wherever it goes has a leak. So constant water coming into the tank, into the bowl, back down the pipe, through the leak... isn't the most pleasant.
I call the maintenance guy again. I ask if he remembers us. He doesn't. I explain to him the problem and he knows right away what is wrong. The flush valve is busted. Apparently there are either these rubber or plastic washers that wear away due to use and once worn out, the tank keeps filling. I ask him if he can come out to fix tonight. He says no. He says I can go to Home Depot to buy the replacement flush valve and it's a simple fix. I ask him if I can make things worse by potentially breaking it. He chuckles. No response.... He explains to me the steps of fixing it and it really doesn't sound that bad. Plus, I will get to learn stuff about the toilet. So far, I've learned flush valve and shuttle valve. The shuttle valve is the valve that maintenance guy came to fix earlier. I turn that quarter-turn to the right and BAM, no more water pouring into the tank. However, because no more water can come into the tank, that means that all the water that is currently in the tank is all the water that can go into the bowl. I have one flush left. My roommate better use it wisely. (I guess we can just turn back the shuttle valve to allow water to pass)
I tell him that I'll give it a go tomorrow and if I fail, I'll give him a call. I need to go to Home Depot though and get some replacement parts. Boo.
So there's my fairly fitting first entry as PortaJon. Now I need to go wash my hands because I've stuck them into my roommates toilet tank. Gross.
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