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Vent: Took me 4 hours to fix a toilet because I skipped the first step | Ask Anything - nhfree.com

Vent: Took me 4 hours to fix a toilet because I skipped the first step

My toilet started running nonstop last Tuesday and I thought I knew what I was doing... pulled the flapper, replaced the fill valve, even adjusted the float arm. After 3 hours of cursing and a second trip to Lowe's, I realized I never checked if the chain was too long. It was literally just getting caught under the flapper every time. Fixed it in 30 seconds after that. Has anyone else spent way too long on a simple fix just because they overthought it?

3 comments

3 Comments

andrewh431mo ago

Hate to be that guy but is a running toilet really worth 4 hours of your life? You could've just tossed a bucket of water in there to flush it and dealt with it later. Seems like one of those problems where you make it bigger than it is and then act like it was a deep lesson.

abby_robinson581mo ago

Four hours?! Dude, I would have already given up and called a plumber after hour one. The fact that it was just the chain getting caught is brutal, I can feel that secondhand frustration. I did something similar with a garbage disposal once, took it completely apart only to find a bottle cap wedged in there. Nobody ever thinks to check the stupid simple thing first, it's always part 47 of the grand master plan.

james_torres1mo ago

Nodding along to that garbage disposal story because I did the EXACT same thing with my sink last year, tore the whole thing apart and found a kid's toy fork in there. It's like our brains are wired to assume the worst case scenario first, we skip right past the obvious stuff and go straight to disaster mode. That toilet chain thing is a CLASSIC, I swear every single person who owns a toilet has had that moment where they realize the fix was just bending a little piece of metal back into place. And for real, the guy saying to toss a bucket of water in there is missing the point entirely, sometimes you just need to conquer the stupid problem for your own pride. We ALL have that one repair that turns into a personal vendetta.