Friends, I’ve gotta tell you that I’ve been less than impressed with one aspect of my homeowning experience thus far: plumbing. While our house isn’t terribly old (only about 40) the plumbing has had sporadic issues since we moved in, some major and some minor. One minor problem that always bugged me was our toilet – namely, the flapper.
Our flapper started leaking last year. As a bonus the handle broke a bit so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and replace them both. Since then it’s been nothing but trouble. While the flapper did fit the valve fine, it just didn’t work as well as that old flapper. I adjusted the chain countless times, had to reset it often, and just thought the whole system was flawed. I mean, am I really still just pulling a chain to flush a toilet in 2010? Really?
Nevertheless, this week I finally had it and set out to get a new flapper. But then I started wondering if there were alternatives. My trusty sidekick Amazon told me that there were. While I had initially settled on a more sophisticated flapper system I then discovered the MJSI HydroRight Dual Flush Converter. It was about five bucks more than the other flapper system I was looking at – twenty bucks.
This really intrigued me. First, it did away with the stupid flapper. Good! Second, no handle. Great! And third, a dual flush mode so that small, ahem, loads would use significantly less water than full ones. Perfect! I read the Amazon reviews – noting that the bad ones were really bad but were still in the minority (ie, the GOP) – and decided to go for it.
I did the install yesterday. They aren’t kidding when they say it takes 10 minutes, but for me it was 15 due to operator error. Didn’t need any tools, either. I popped that sucker in and only had to adjust the light flush amount a bit in order to get it going. But that was that – super simple. And now I’m just that much closer to realizing my dream of having a perfect toilet.
So far so good… and anything that uses less water is a plus in my book. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to take my weekly 12-hour shower.
Posted in Toilets
Paul June 3, 2010, 3:03 pm
And now that it’s been a few months, a progress update: I’m very frustrated with this device.
I like the idea. I really do. And for the first few weeks I was happy with it. But then I noticed that the toilet would keep running at seemingly random intervals. It wasn’t a clog; rather, the rubber gasket/seal at the bottom of the tank was slightly warped. Adjusting the height and position of the device helped… but only temporarily.
Since then I’ve had to make multiple adjustments intermittently, enough to make the whole thing annoying. I’m planning on going back to (sigh) an old-fashioned flapper and chain setup.
Bummer.