Adventures in Plumbing
Some years I can get through an entire year without having a plumber replace something. It turns out 2023 is not one of those years. Today, our regular plumber sent two guys out to:
[1] Replace the kitchen faucet, which was leaking into the cabinet underneath the sink. We found this problem when we opened the cabinet door a few weeks back and found water pooling in the bottom of it. It turns out that we last replaced the kitchen faucet 12 years and 7 months ago, and as the plumber told us when he came to give us an estimate, your standard kitchen faucet usually last about ten years.
I'm hopeful that the new one (which was close in appearance to the old one as I could find) will last somewhat longer, as we now have whole house filtration that should reduce mineral build up. The old faucet has visible mineral build up on it from the many years before we got filtration, which probably did it no favors.
[2] We also had the toilet replaced in our upstairs full bathroom. The impetus for this replacement was that the toilet was not flushing consistently, and occasionally would overflow instead of flushing. The former is tolerable, the latter much less so, so we got a brand new toilet installed. This is the most expensive way to clean a toilet.
We went with the new toilet because the plumber's belief, backed up by the visible evidence, is that a lot of minerals has accumulated in the line that connects the toilet tank to the toilet bowl. This reduced the size of the channel and made it so not as much water could enter the bowl for flushing purposes. In theory, this means that the new toilet will also last longer since the filtration will reduce the mineral build up. I'm not sure what "longer" means in this context since it's been the same toilet since I moved into the house in 2007, and I have no idea if 16 years is a reasonable length for a toilet to function or not.
The only particular challenge about acquiring a new toilet was that I was told I'd need a toilet with a 14 inch length between the base and the wall. The old toilet only had a 12 inch length, and as a result there was a substantial gap (ok, it was 2 inches) between the back of the toilet tank and the wall, which was inconvenient because things would routinely fall off the toilet tank through that gap.
It turns out that the various big box home improvement stores only sell toilets with a 12 inch length. 14 inch toilets are now non-standard. Fortunately, when I popped into the Cleveland Plumbing Supply company they had a 14 inch toilet in their warehouse in Medina, which I was able to pick up before our plumbers were scheduled to arrive. Of course, it was more expensive (since there are a lot fewer of them made) and we had to trade off other options. Notably, M had to settle for an elongated toilet instead of a round toilet. This probably probably explains why the old toilet was a 12 inch toilet in a 14 inch slot. I'm sure whomever installed it said "screw it, it's not worth the extra money to get a toilet that fits correctly." I thought about taking that route myself, but M decided that she preferred to have the gap go away.
Moral of the story: if you need a 14 inch toilet, make sure you order it far in advance. If we ever completely redo our bathroom, maybe we'll see if we can convert to a 12 inch toilet instead to ease the headaches of whomever has to deal with this in the future.
[1] Replace the kitchen faucet, which was leaking into the cabinet underneath the sink. We found this problem when we opened the cabinet door a few weeks back and found water pooling in the bottom of it. It turns out that we last replaced the kitchen faucet 12 years and 7 months ago, and as the plumber told us when he came to give us an estimate, your standard kitchen faucet usually last about ten years.
I'm hopeful that the new one (which was close in appearance to the old one as I could find) will last somewhat longer, as we now have whole house filtration that should reduce mineral build up. The old faucet has visible mineral build up on it from the many years before we got filtration, which probably did it no favors.
[2] We also had the toilet replaced in our upstairs full bathroom. The impetus for this replacement was that the toilet was not flushing consistently, and occasionally would overflow instead of flushing. The former is tolerable, the latter much less so, so we got a brand new toilet installed. This is the most expensive way to clean a toilet.
We went with the new toilet because the plumber's belief, backed up by the visible evidence, is that a lot of minerals has accumulated in the line that connects the toilet tank to the toilet bowl. This reduced the size of the channel and made it so not as much water could enter the bowl for flushing purposes. In theory, this means that the new toilet will also last longer since the filtration will reduce the mineral build up. I'm not sure what "longer" means in this context since it's been the same toilet since I moved into the house in 2007, and I have no idea if 16 years is a reasonable length for a toilet to function or not.
The only particular challenge about acquiring a new toilet was that I was told I'd need a toilet with a 14 inch length between the base and the wall. The old toilet only had a 12 inch length, and as a result there was a substantial gap (ok, it was 2 inches) between the back of the toilet tank and the wall, which was inconvenient because things would routinely fall off the toilet tank through that gap.
It turns out that the various big box home improvement stores only sell toilets with a 12 inch length. 14 inch toilets are now non-standard. Fortunately, when I popped into the Cleveland Plumbing Supply company they had a 14 inch toilet in their warehouse in Medina, which I was able to pick up before our plumbers were scheduled to arrive. Of course, it was more expensive (since there are a lot fewer of them made) and we had to trade off other options. Notably, M had to settle for an elongated toilet instead of a round toilet. This probably probably explains why the old toilet was a 12 inch toilet in a 14 inch slot. I'm sure whomever installed it said "screw it, it's not worth the extra money to get a toilet that fits correctly." I thought about taking that route myself, but M decided that she preferred to have the gap go away.
Moral of the story: if you need a 14 inch toilet, make sure you order it far in advance. If we ever completely redo our bathroom, maybe we'll see if we can convert to a 12 inch toilet instead to ease the headaches of whomever has to deal with this in the future.