As much as it sucked to have to fix our leaky toilet twice, doing it a third time actually wasn’t that bad. When I wrote yesterday that I had fixed the problem, I spoke too soon. Last night when I returned from work my wife informed me that the throw rug in the bathroom was wet, and that the leak didn’t seem to have been fixed. When I went to investigate more closely, I realized that I hadn’t fixed the entire problem…

As it turns out, the rubber washer on one of the bolts that holds the tank to the base of the commode had gone bad. A quick run to Home Depot follow by about ten minutes of work and I had the situation back under control. New price: $1.29 (wax ring) +$1.49 (fabric reinforced rubber washers). The moral of the story? When you’re making a fairly routine repair such as this, it’s probably worth replacing everything that’s easily and inexpensively replaced, even if some of these parts aren’t giving you any (apparent) problems. In fact, I had debated doing this in the first place, but then decided to leave well enough alone. And there’s another lesson here: don’t ever, ever, ever use those Clorox pucks in your toilet tank. We haven’t used them in quite some time, but used to use them. The problem? Prolonged exposure to bleach is hell on all of the rubber parts (including those darn washers) that come into contact with it. While such products ease the cleaning of toilets, they also ensure that you’ll need to make repairs much sooner than you otherwise would have.