Plumbing the depths

I don’t usually wake up and think “Perhaps I’ll do some plumbing today”. But this morning the decision was taken out of my hands, what with the water cascading down the side of the house and all. I had a pretty good idea what the problem was, and a trip into the loft confirmed it. The float valve on the water tank had failed. The split pin that holds the ball cock had rusted through and the whole assembly had broken free, leading the valve to fill the tank forever. The good news was that the overflow was working perfectly, and all the excess water was being directed out of the house. The bad news was that I had to fix it.

I’ve been here before, around twenty years ago when pretty much the same thing happened. That time I didn’t have the luxury of a tap to turn off the water supply. Well, actually I did have a tap, it’s just that when I turned it the top came off in my hand. On that occasion (and I’m rather proud of this) I came home from work in my lunch hour, turned on all the cold-water taps, flushed the toilets and then managed to swap the broken assembly while the water pressure was reduced. I hardly made any mess. Then I ate a bag of crisps and went back to work. But of course, I was much younger then.

Today I turned the water off and then headed off to ToolStation to get a replacement (£7.98). Fun fact. If you search for ToolStation the first hit you get is for ScrewFix. And if you search for ScrewFix the first hit you get is ToolStation.

ScrewFix and ToolStation are competing building supply companies in the UK. In Hull their depots are actually next to each other. I have this idea that on Christmas Eve, when all is peace and goodwill, the staff from the two depots meet in the car park for a football match while someone plays the mouth organ and all talk is of “When will this war all be over….”. But I digress.

The fixing process was actually quite painless. Fortunately I’ve kept my big spanners. For me the worst part was seeing the corroded and aged part and remembering back to when I fitted it as a brand new shiny one. I don’t think I’ll be replacing this the next time it wears out.

Anyhoo, we now have running water in all the right places.

I found this awesome sticker on my toolbox…