Had a major plumbing success yesterday. For whatever reasons the water valve in both toilets started leaking at roughly the same time. Fixing leaky toilet valves is one of those jobs that should be really simple but somehow can turn into a nightmare. Personally I’d deal with it by just turning off the water supply valve at the toilet after the tank has filled then turning it on when it empties but my bride is not happy with that solution and wants it to work as intended, all the time. Went to Lowes and found shelves full of replacement parts with prices ranging from $8 to $20. The shelf area that appeared to be the heaviest shopped had a couple sitting there at $9 so I went for that model and got one for each toilet. I asked the sales assistant and he said they were all pretty much the same and he personally used the same one I selected. That made it feel right.
Armed with replacements, I decided to attack the front toilet more aggressively and actually fix/readjust the unit currently installed and leaking. I bent a couple of the pieces by hand and miraculously, the leaking stopped. Went to the back bathroom and tried a similar quick fix but no luck. I read the instructions on the replacement several times, very carefully. This is usually the step I omit. The replacement was a totally different design than the leaky one so it didn’t do any good to study the current installation. One thing I learned over the years is to make sure the tank is absolutely empty before removing the water feed line. Sounds simple and obvious but……….. Undid the water feed line and the old part came out easily in about 3 seconds. The new one was installed in under a minute and didn’t leak when I turned on the water again. That’s a big deal. The tank filled to exactly the right spot and turned the water off. Still no leaks. I flushed it for the first time and it came off perfectly. Job done.
Great birthday. Tom came up to the lake on Saturday. We went fishing early Sunday morning and caught a few, one worth talking about. Then Tina and Olivia came up and we headed for a new (to us) barbecue place at Palm Coast, beach side. We had seen this place hundreds of times but always decided that it didn’t make sense to eat barbecue at the beach when there are so many good seafood places. So I was surprised when Tom called and asked if I’d ever heard of this place and how it was ranked #7 in the nation or something. The most famous barbecue place I know of is in Austin, Franklin’s and that’s ranked #10 by the same ranker. It’s a tiny place with a sign that says bait, tackle and barbecue. I had been in there a couple of times to buy tackle and noticed that there was a window with a sign that said “order here” but I never had the impression barbecue was a real business here. It’s in a county park with a boat ramp on the intercoastal and I guessed most of their food business was to boaters who pulled in and grabbed some lunch. Holy cow was it good. We all had ribs and they were as good or better than any I remember and the sides were incredible. I had beets and goat cheese and smoked barbecue beans as my sides. Best beans I’ve ever had. We all came away with the same take on it – excellent.
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