The Little Emily That Could

Several weeks ago my toilet started hissing at me.  Now, I'm no plumber, but I do know that a hissing toilet is not a good thing.  So, I did what any environmentally conscious non-plumber homeowner would do:  I turned the water supply to the toilet on and off each time I used the bathroom.  Now, as you can imagine, that got pretty old.  Honestly, I was buying time trying to figure out who my victim was going to be to help me figure out what was wrong with the toilet and fix it.

But, no victim presented himself to me, so I decided to consider tackling the toilet repair myself.  First, I took the lid off the tank and attempted to familiarize myself with the parts of a working toilet and what they each do.  I've found that, in DIY, if you're attempting to repair something and you actually know how it is supposed to work, you're miles ahead.

So, after a basic lesson in toilet anatomy, I decided to start taking mine apart.  In some odd stroke of luck, I already had a toilet repair kit in the basement that was only missing the flapper, which I had already determined wasn't the problem.  The problem was a leaky pump thingy (yes, that is the official term).

So, I turned the water supply off, flushed the toilet, and then soaked up the remaining water in the tank.  That was easy enough.  Next step was to unhook the pump thingy from the water supply.  I quickly determined there to be 2 nuts securing that to the bottom of the tank. 

 I did have to use a wrench, but loosening those was also pretty simple.  In no time, I had the old pump out of the toilet and the new one sitting in place.

I routed the little black water tube into the white cylinder thingy- the same as it was before I took anything apart.  Then, all I had to do was screw the two nuts back onto the water supply line underneath the tank.  I hand tightened them and then gave them a few more turns with the wrench.  I figured if anything went wrong, it'd be because this seal was bad.  But, I screwed everything back together and tentatively turned the water back on, and...no leaks!  Things have looked like this for the afternoon and evening:

...but so far, things are dry!

I never considered myself a plumber, but I suppose I should add that to my resume.  This is a good thing, since we'll be getting a new dishwasher soon (RIP Frigidaire), and it will need to be hooked up.  Tell me:  is a dishwasher any harder to hook up than a toilet?  I have a feeling it is...

xo,

Emily