Barely plumbing, but working with toilet innards.

The wife took the kids to the park to meet with a couple of school mates for some sledding. I took my toolbox to the bathroom for some overdue maintenance.

The bathroom from the hallway on the second floor has been slowly leaking. Thankfully, it's leaking into the bowl, so it just runs a little bit every now and again to top off. I've tinkered with the bits within, to wipe some of the build-up from the valve, make sure it's flapping just right, adjusting the float just a little. None of it worked. So I ordered a new set of fill parts.

I've long gone "ugh" at the enormous flush of our toilets when there's a little pee in there, especially after like a little kid pees in there. Yes, I'm all for a fresh and empty bowl, but it doesn't take a gallon and a half to flush away a couple ounces of pee. When we were vacationing in Florida, before the virus times, they had a simple divided lever for the short and long flush, and I've thought I could have one, but didn't want to replace just for replacement sake. Now is my chance!

We have three toilets, so I got three sets of two-stage flushers. Even though just the one is leaking, the kits aren't sold at my local store, so to have them shipped to me cost almost as much as ordering three of them to get the free shipping. Two would have been a dollar short, so really two plus shipping is cheaper than the three with free shipping, but that's picky. More technically, I could have gotten just the kit with the flush valve and lever for a few dollars left, but when replacing some of it, might as well replace all of it. That's also why I got all three; when one goes, it probably isn't long before the others follow.

Replacing the toilet innards is pretty easy, unless you also need to replace the flush valve, as they can sometimes require removing the tank. The kit I bought promised to work with the existing valve. Essentially you turn off the water to the toilet, and flush. There's always a little water left in, so use a little bucket or something underneath where the water goes into inlet valve. Unscrew the supply line from the inlet valve, and the inlet valve from the tank, and remove. Most of the rest of the water will start draining as you unscrew the inlet valve, so you might want to loosen and wait, or dive in. Easy. Then take off the handle (in my case, not always if you're simply replacing the insides, unless this is the part that's broken), and remove the rubber flap from the flush valve. This should leave a (planned) hole at the bottom of the tank that leads to the floor, and a plastic tube sticking up near the middle, with a bigger hole opened to the toilet bowl. The rest should be space, hopefully just a little crusty if you have hard water, but otherwise clean. Wet, but clean.

Then, usually, do the reverse to replace. In some cases, you can do a subset of these, depending on what's broken. I've replaced just the handle, as the arm or chain has been broken. Sometimes the rubber valve gets crusty or cracked, and you have to replace that. I have had to replace cracked overfill tubes, which required removing the tank entirely, as it can be (as it was in my case) a single unit screwed into the bottom of the tank.

The instructions for this kit were pretty much just like that. Some different nuance because of its ability to partially flush, but that is cleverly done with some additional floats in a bit that goes over the flush valve.

Installing the fill valve was as straight forward as expected. I used a paper towel to dry the bottom of the tank around the fill tube hole as much as possible. The new tube is a little bigger than the previous, but not big enough to be concerning. The tubes and stuff need to be oriented in the right direction, but otherwise, just snug to the bottom.

Then the instructions failed me, but only because I have big hands, and a sore shoulder, neither of which could have been predicted by the manufacturer, nor foreseen as problems. The easy part of this, the part that doesn't require replacing the valve, is because of a silicone dome that fits into the existing valve. This is held in place by a bit of tube that wraps around and clamps onto the overflow tube. This was all slick, but the bit of tube that wraps is split, to easily fit around, and then gets "clamped" by a zip-tie, that is positioned near the back of the tank, requiring some hand work between the freshly installed inlet valve and the overflow tube. Just a bit of a squeeze for my big hands. I was concerned that the squeezing and tugging I ended up doing would leave the dome less snug than it might need to be.

Additionally, there's a little shim that's supposed to go inside that clamp before tightening. It seemed overly thick, so I didn't force it in there. As I tightened the zip-tie, I started getting concerned that I would run out of zip-tie before the clamp got too snug. And after I pulled it the first time, there was no room to wedge that shim in there. I got down to one or two clicks left in the zip-tie when the clamp was tight enough, so I hope that means the shim isn't necessary.

The right instructions would have been to install that bit first. A little more than the one-liner in an overly busy cartoon frame in the instructions might have helped understand the shim need and position better, too. For the others, I think I've got it.

Then simply press and twist the fancy second set of floats over the flush valve, connect the refill tube to the overflow tube, and the insides are done. I mounted the new dual-flush lever, and clipped on its little control box. Installation complete.

I turned on the water, cautiously at first, and watched for leaks. Often, and in this case, there's some odd condensation that will occur that might look like leaks as the tank quickly cools with the fresh feed of cold water, but after wiping down the connection points, no more leaking appeared. I paid close attention as the water filled past the silicone dome. I fully expected the water pressure outside the dome to force its way inside, especially since I didn't put the shim in there and had doubts about the grip given my difficulty tightening the clamp, but that didn't happen.

I flushed. It worked. The toilet drained, the tank filled, and stopped when the float hit the top. It was a little high, so I adjusted the float and flushed again. It stopped filling the tank where it used to.

I tried the other lever. Again the whole tank emptied. That didn't seem right. I tried the other again. The tank emptied completely again. The flush that inspired me in Florida let you push the long lever for the short flush, then the short lever (which also pushed the long lever) for the long flush. This seemed to do the long flush for either.

A quick peek at the instructions, and that was backwards for this model (and maybe in my head). Flushing with the inner, shorter lever, which does take the longer lever with it, should give the short flush. So that's how I'm going to present it to the others; if you want the short flush, use the short lever...and the long lever for the long flush.

The instructions also pointed out the float adjustments on the extra valve cover to control how much water would go with each flush. Instead of coming out of the box with the dual flush set up, it was "full flush" all the time. Sliding a little lever adjusted the flush level. The instructions suggested starting with the lever all the way down, and raising it until a short flush empties the bowl. Really, this should be how it comes out of the box.

I pushed it all the way down and flushed again. The tank quickly emptied to about half, and then started filling. The bowl did empty, but it seemed pretty close. I slid the guide a notch higher and tried again. Full bowl empty, but only half a tank. I ticked it up one more notch, just for good measure.

I tested the long flush and short flush again. The long flush really just runs a bit more water through the empty bowl than the short flush does. And I tested that you can short flush it and then hit the long flush before the bowl fills, and it will simply continue emptying the tank. So if you have a reason for a long flush, but short flush first, you can "finish" the flush.

I suspect for most flushes, the short will be just fine. It seems more intuitive to tap the end of the lever than to grab it in the middle for a flush. But after watching the little hands, they grab the middle and twist, so the short flush might be their norm. I guess, worst case is that it full-flushes like it did before, but sometimes gets a lucky short flush. 

Everyone came home from sledding all tuckered out. The kids from climbing the hill and sledding, and mom from standing on the snow chatting with the other parents for so long. Everyone was masked, and standing apart, so all safe there.

The boy noticed the different handle on the toilet immediately. I didn't think it was really noteworthy, but wow, what observation skills. I showed him how to flush it differently, and I think he wasted all of this year's potential savings by flushing a few times. Sigh.

Everyone's healthy.