PLUMBING PROBLEMS

Our place here was built in 1987 and sometimes it shows.  The bathroom with the main bedroom has been having toilet troubles.  Shortly after we arrived I turned the water on at the point where it comes into the condo and then flushed the toilet and heard a big bang!  It scared me.  I wondered what was wrong.  The cause was air in the water pipes.  Once I figured that out, I didn't worry about it.

But later when I went into that bathroom, I found the floor flooded with water--clean water fortunately!  I turned off the supply to the toilet and investigated.  That initial big bang of air from the water supply more or less blew the control of the float valve off, so it continued to run.  BIG PROBLEM!!!

I went into the second bathroom and examined the toilet there.  I saw that the arm of the float valve that turned off the water could be screwed back on.  So I did that and turned the water supply back on.

OOPS!  When I happened to go there again later the floor was again flooded.  What happened?  I think maybe the connection to the float arm had been stripped.  I turned off the water supply again.  Things were pretty busy just then, so we left the toilet turned off and used the second bathroom.  A few days later I got in touch with Dennis and he came over to fix the toilet.  I had bought the parts needed at Walmart and he installed them.

It was a real struggle for him to deal with the old, rusty screws and other parts in the toilet.  He sweated and grunted and persisted--and finally the job was done.  Now another problem has showed up.  The tank sits too loosely on the base and that's leaking.  He's coming back tomorrow to see if he can add some washers to those connections.  Otherwise, it looks like we need a new toilet.

On another topic, this past Sunday our pastor preached a very good sermon based on Psalm 8 and dealt with "earth keeping" -- very timely.  We try to have a small footprint.  Back home in Alberta we are able to keep our trash to the very minimum--just a few garbage cans of trash go to the dump each year.  All of the organic waste (and we create a great deal of that!) goes into the compost.  We recycle everything else possible; styrofoam is the one exception that cannot be recycled there.  So I buy eggs in cardboard cartons, and try my best not to bring home any other styrofoam.

We use reusable bags for our groceries.  I do that here, also, but this morning by the time I got to the checkout I realized I didn't have those bags with me.  I parked the cart and went to the car to get the bags.  Oh, Oh, they weren't there, and then I remembered they were still by the living room door.  So I went through the checkout with my rather small load of groceries, and they came home in these: 12 FLIMSY PLASTIC BAGS!  Several things had been double bagged.  Some items were one in a bag!  I hadn't been watching closely enough as the cashier transferred them to bags.

                             

Have you been watching the PBS News Hour series this week on The Problem of Plastics?  I'm am just appalled to be part of that problem today!