The last few years it seems the chain that lifts the flush flapper ball in the old "throne" gets corroded, rusty and breaks about once a year. Fixed it today and it works great and should last. Used 25 lb test fishing line to replace the chain, put a small split sinker at the end by the flapper to keep it from tangling and adds a little weight to the flapper when its closing.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 21, 2000

Answers

Jay: Neat idea! I'll have to remember it the next time this happens here, as you said, about once a year it seems. Thanks for the idea! Jan

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), October 21, 2000.

Jay, Jan,

I'm concerned; I've NEVER had this happen, and I've lived in a lot of differenet places (although I have to admit the last few toilets I've had use a plastic strip in place of the chain). Is it possible that your water is slightly acidic? If so, it's possible that it may be dissolviing other things in your plumbing system, e.g. the pipes, the solder (lead/tin if plumbed less recently than about ten years ago, in Oregon at least, and silver/tin since then).

My friends had acidic water which caused them to get headaches from excess copper in the water. They didn't know what was going on until their pipes started leaking.

I hope I'm just being paranoid, and also that I don't get you upset over nothing, but it might be worth getting your water tested. Maybe the corrosion is being caused by some sort of mineral content in your water that is benign.

JOJ

-- jumpoffjoe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), October 21, 2000.

Our water is heavy limestone content pumped out of wells in North Central AL. If it was any harder, could probally hear it clunk coming out the tap.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 22, 2000.