Day Of Repairs

The front door handle was having problems over 2 months ago. I took the handle apart and realigned the turning mechanism. Honestly I am not sure what the part is called. It was a little black stick that was inside the half of the door handle that is in the house. That seemed to work for a couple of weeks but I think the other half of the door handle lock also got out of alignment.

Today was my day out to run errands while Nathan is gone this week. I got up early this morning to make sure I had time to get errands done before my hair cut appointment.

First to Target then over to OSH. I picked up a replacement door handle that was the same style as the current one. I then went to the plumbing section to pick up a Fluidmaster 400A Fill Valve (more about this later).

After my hair cut I got home and replaced the front door handle. All that was required was a screwdriver but I ended up using a screwdriver, small allen wrench (from the initially purchased handle), my house key, and then all the following included in the new door handle package; large allen wrench, screws, Kwikset lock changing tool, keys and the directions.

I got the old door handle parts out and then put in the new handle. I then re-keyed the new door handle lock and re-keyed the old door handle lock. Done! It was about 30 minutes. I did save some parts from the old door handle.

Next to tackle on the list was the toilet fill valve. The background on this really quickly. The flapper valve was replaced when we moved in, as we thought this was the problem with the tank not filling properly. The flapper valve we purchased was not the right one for the model toilet. Since the new master bathroom was complete we slowly just stopped using the broken toilet. I finally bought the correct flapper valve but when I put that on yesterday that didn't fix the problem.

Last night I spent some time doing research online and made a call to dad. It seemed from the research that the recommendation was to replace the fill valve. Hence the purchase at OSH.

I took the box and the recommended tools from the Youtube video I watched last night. I read the directions for the replacement and proceeded to work.

Amazingly I didn't crack the toilet. I was able to follow all the steps in the directions and the tank actually filled. I was so excited! The toilet works!

I replaced the flapper valve with the new flapper valve. It was taking holding the handle down for a few seconds for the toilet to flush. I thought shoot! I went through all of that and now we have to hold the handle down for a couple of seconds. I put the cabinet we placed over the toilet back and was starting to fill it when I thought I would do another quick look online and see what I could find on this new problem. Apparently I need to adjust the float on the flapper valve chain to help with this. It took me longer to fix this than to install the new fill valve!

The float on the chain need to be adjusted up. I figured that out and checked the flush. All seemed quite well. The cabinet is now back over the toilet. The stuff that belongs in the cabinet is not longer in a pile on the floor in the bathroom. Life is good!

My treat to myself for those fixes; the bakery! Sad I know!

The tools that I actually used were a screwdriver, piece of cardboard, rags, bucket, Nathan's wrench (not mine), tape measure, scissors, and from the fill valve box; fill valve, washer, clip, house, and directions.



Here is the new working system:

Here is the old fill valve: