Vent of Hearing

How to Break a Toilet

A slow drip, easily ignored. A gentle flow of water which almost evaporated before it finished its journey. From the overflow pipe to the garage roof. From my toilet.

I ignored it. I had looked inside the toilet to see why it was happening but couldn't fathom the insides. It was all bendy plastic and water. I forgot about it. Two years later, my dad spotted it.

"You should get that sorted out," he said.
"Um, I did mean to." I didn't.
"Let's go take a look at it."

My dad knows about toilets and how they work.

"Ah, the flange[1] is loose."
"Oh."
"You need a new one."

As it was a Sunday and after 4 o'clock, I couldn't get a new flange. My father was throughted in his plans to fix my toilet.

***

Drip, drip, drip. I was looking at garage roof again. Once my dad had pointed out the dripping, I couldn't get it out of my mind. I looked in the toilet again. If the flange was loose, it could be tightened up. I looked in my toolkit for a suitable device. There was nothing labeled "flange tightener" but one particular spanner seemed to fit the flange, and I was determined to give it a go.

Awkwardly setting myself, the toilet bowl was in the way, I tried to turn the spanner. Nothing happened. Maybe, if I tried a little harder ...

SNAP.

Something gave. The spanner went loose, so did the flange, so did the rest of the bendy plastic in the toilet. Water gushed. Everywhere.

My toilet was directly fitted to the mains, so the pressure was quite high. I tried applying the flange where it should be, where it was shortly before I messed around with it. The water emerging from the hole reduced slightly, but didn't stop. With the bathroom starting to look like a set from Titanic, I started to panic.

I rushed downstairs. Having only been in the house two years, I hadn't found the stop cock. I wish I'd spent a small amount of time familiarising myself with its location. Garage? No. Kitchen, at first, no? But what was that small wooden cupboard in the wall? Ah, the stop cock. I tried to turn it. It was stuck.

I really tried to turn it. It squeaked slightly and it moved a millimetre or so. Realising I was turing it the wrong way, I tried again. This time I was able to turn it a few times round before it stopped.

Back upstairs, the torrent had reduced to a slow effusion. I turned on all the taps in the house. This stopped the water. I had won.

After the initial relief subsided, I realised my predicament. It was late Sunday night, I had no toilet and all the taps in my house were running. How much does a plummer cost? A quick phone call revealed £90 just for the call out. I began to get that feeling. That feeling where I want to sit down, watch TV and pretend that someone else had just done something very stupid.

The plumber was very kind and didn't laugh at me when he arrived. He also didn't charge me VAT because I paid cash. That almost made me feel better.

[1] Precise plumbing terms have been replaced by meaningless drivel to hide my incompetence.

Related: How to Repair a Leak Under the House

Posted at June 10, 2002 04:50 PM