A Ssssssssssssssssssss So Slight

You don’t remember that thing I wrote about DIY’ing a loooong-leaking hose faucet last January, do you? Of course you don’t. Imention it because after being proving myself to be so slow to put off what in essence turned out to be such an easy and water- and money-saving fix, one would think that if any other H2O-No! pops up around our 106-year-old domecile, my conservational self would hippity hop to getting it repaired, yes?

Not so much.

Case in point: the fill valve inside the toilet in the bathroom off the study. It literally has been running for about nine months. Not pouring, mind you. In fact, the flow was slight enough as to be almost imperceptible. But it was continuous nonetheless — 24/7/365. And I’ve been aware of it aaaaall thiiiiiiis time.

Suffice it to say it was ever on my to-do list, but always getting bumped to the bottom.

Not that I did nada. As best I figured it, the valve was not shutting completely after flushing. As the water would refill in the tank, it would almost-but-nooooooot-quiiiite close off. So hell yeah: I tinkered with it on a whole bunch of occasions — twisting a screw there, repositioning the floatball here… I even went so far as to buy a replacement assembly at the local hardware store about six months ago. But it was 15 inches tall, whereas the tank won’t accommodate anything more than a foot high.

So the fill valve went on incessantly overfilling. Draining water with juuuuuuust-so-slight a ssssssssssssssss and the occasional very quiet “gloip” noise that sounded as if the world’s smallest cottonmouth snake with a burping problem was living in there.

But of course, I wouldn’t be writing about this if there wasn’t a happy ending, right?

Riiiiiiight.

It came in the form of the Fluidmaster 400LS Fill Valve With Leak Sentry Technology, that I found in the back end of my closest Home Depot yesterday. Ten bucks.

Not only reasonably priced, but miracle of miracles, I dropped it in and it went to work without me having to do the slighest bit of adjusting.

And that makes me nervous. So whenever I’m at my desk I keep an ear toward the bathroom, to hear if the tiny burping snake has snuck back.

Sssssssso far, sssssssssso good.