A toilet accident I had to deal with yesterday

[Mars.inDiapers]

What's worse than you having an accident where you don't make it to the toilet and wet yourself? 
Your toilet having an accident and wetting itself. 

Basically, some part of plumbing sprang a leak, sprayed the wall, stripped some paint off it and by the time we noticed, there was a mini flood in the WC room on the upper floor in my mom's house, where my grandma lives. Luckily it was just the water supply line, which happened to be old and brittle, so it cracked, and all I had to do was to make a 10 minute drive down to a hardware store, buy a new one and replace it. Right?

Wrong.

I replaced the line, but by doing so, the float inside tank got out of alignment and would not shut off the water, making it overflow.
I had to fix the float, which meant I had to remove the tank lid, which meant I had to unscrew the flush button from then lid first aaaand ... of course it too was old and brittle broke off instead. I figured, that can't be that much of a problem, it just pushes on a little plastic pushrod that actuates a lever that actuates another lever that lifts the flush valve, so even if it broke off, it should still work. Right?

Wrong.

The fllushing mechanism was, for some reason, more complicated than that, and in order for the toilet to flush more than just once, that little rod thing not only needs to be pushed down, but then also pulled back up, which is done by a return spring that lifts button which pulls the rod back up, but it can't work when the button is no longer attached to the rod.

So I had to jury-rig it somehow and make it sort of work for now, before I could order replacement parts and fix it properly. Which in the end I managed to do, but it was a major hassle (Not to mention in the process I had to waste about 100 liters of fresh water by repeated testing that it flushed, filled up, didn't leak and shut the water feed off once full, with no overflowing. That's not including the amount that leaked in the first place.), and quite an unnerving experience, because this was actually kinda serious. 

Apart from the flood it caused (which if left unchecked would spill down into electrical panel that's located right underneath the WC room), my grandma is pushing 85 years, her mobility has gotten quite poor as of late, so I couldn't just leave it not fixed and have her have to go up and down a flight of stairs every time she needs to use the WC.

At that point I thought to myself how ironic it the whole situation was - here I am, trying my damn best to fix a stupid appliance, but solving one problem just leads to a whole new one I now need to deal with, and if I had my way, I'd much rather just get rid of the thing completely because diapers exist and they are better than toilets.

And right there in my bedroom, right next to grandma's room, I had my travel bag, packed full of diapers, and I, being 33, able bodied and quite fit, would wear them on some nights during my stays, and my grandma, being 51 years my senior, actually has less of a need for diapers than I do (and my need isn't even physiological), since despite her age, she's still doing just well continence wise, and while I do it because have a strong desire to wear diapers, she on the contrary has a strong desire not to wear diapers. In fact, she's been quite adamant about not wanting to ever end up needing diapers, whenever the conversation among our family somehow veered to that kind of subject. It's understandable from her perspective; she recounted to me the stories about her mother (my great-grandmother), how she in the last stage of her life was completely immobile and incontinent, how difficult it was to take care of her, how sorry such a state of being must have been ... 

Regardless, as I was trying to fix the toilet, I amused myself with the idea that I could make fun of the situation by saying, jokingly of course, something like "Sorry nan, that darn thing is fubar, nothing I can do about it. How about I go get you some Pampers instead."

Which technically would have been the easiest solution, I mean I had my travel bag worth of diapers literally right there!

And at the same time, it would have been the most impossible solution.

Apart from the fact that such proposal, if meant seriously, would very likely not go over well with my grandma, for reasons stated above, my family has no idea about my ABDLness or my diapers (and I intend to keep it that way), and if I all of sudden came up with a stack of adult diapers, most of them clearly not being of the plain old variety you'd get at a pharmacy or medical supplies store, that would surely make for a quite an awkward situation, and require some very difficult explaining on my part. I feel that simply saying:

"Here you go grandma. I just somehow happen to have these adult-sized diapers on hand. Don't ask me why I have these. Or where I got them from. Or why almost all of them have this colorful babyish printing on them. Need-to-know basis."

wouldn't quite cut it.

But it was a funny thought nonetheless, one that made me chuckle in a rather unpleasant situation.

And it was a reminder that once again, diapers are better than toilets.

Your diaper leaks?
Worst case scenario, you'll have some stains on your clothes and your floor or furniture.

Your toilet lealks?
Best case scenario, you'll have some floor mopping and some plumbing to do.
Worst case scenario, you flood your whole damn building, and the damages will scale with every single liter of water spilled.

[Cruiser 03]

After reading your day” I prefer diapers “such elegant solutions . 

[Crinklz Kat]

I awoke one morning some years ago to the sound of water.  Got downstairs to find that the toilet tank was overflowing and one corner of the entire floor was completely flooded. (fortunately it's concrete)  As it turns out, the valve assembly in the tank simply disintegrated and water was flowing in faster than it could drain out the overflow tube... so it overflowed the entire tank.  I was fortunate with the concrete floor. Once I got most of the water soaked up, I cranked up my dehumidifier to max and within a few days, everything was dried out.

Getting back to that valve.  As I started taking things apart, the rest of the valve simply crumbled.  The plastic had become so brittle that the water pressure was able to simply blow out of it.   Why???  Turns out it was all due to me having used those chlorine tablets even farther back in time to keep it clean.  Since that toilet hardly ever got used, it got pretty concentrated in the tank.   Utterly destroyed the plastic.  Lesson learned --- never used them again since.   In fact, that toilet's kinda been out of service ever since because I never got it to stop leaking.  

 

[feralfreak]

i can beat that, some time back my uncle had to get a local low cost group to come in and do some work to put in a shower(he is paralyzed on his left side, been that way since he was a toddler), and they did some work on his toilet, also on the drain line. the whole thing was a clusterfuck. the shower is ok, its a walk in, low ledge so he can get in it easy, but they cut halfway through the floor joists to set in a drain line, YOU CANT DO THAT!!!, when they put the toilet back down, they didnt bother to use a wax ring, he had a 90 warranty, but by the time the rot showed up with water leaking out, and the toilet being loose because the subfloor holding the bolts was rotted out, the warranty was up. it was disgraceful, one of his sons had to come in and change out the subfloor and put in a wax ring, the underside of that toilet was completely waxless.

[rusty pins]

We recently had all the 50 year old pipes replaced in the house, water and then sewer.  The water lines are PEX and the sewer PVC.  The old sewer actually had a long crack on the top (thankfully not the bottom) which is why I was smelling some methane.  No more concern the old metal pipes were leeching contaminants in the drinking water, no more leaks at the toilet and the old galvanized drain pipe from the bathroom sink was almost rusted closed!  Problem is, if someone wads too much TP the toilet will overflow and run down to the basement on a diorama I have.  I used to have waterproof tarps stapled up under the pipes in the basement but the tarps were taken down when the sewer was replaced and never put back up.  Now I have the tarp over the top of my display just in case.

[feralfreak]

1 hour ago, rusty pins said:

We recently had all the 50 year old pipes replaced in the house, water and then sewer.  The water lines are PEX and the sewer PVC.  The old sewer actually had a long crack on the top (thankfully not the bottom) which is why I was smelling some methane.  No more concern the old metal pipes were leeching contaminants in the drinking water, no more leaks at the toilet and the old galvanized drain pipe from the bathroom sink was almost rusted closed!  Problem is, if someone wads too much TP the toilet will overflow and run down to the basement on a diorama I have.  I used to have waterproof tarps stapled up under the pipes in the basement but the tarps were taken down when the sewer was replaced and never put back up.  Now I have the tarp over the top of my display just in case.

we had to have our septic line replaced, it had broken in the ground and the way it was broke was letting waste stop up the line, first we thought the tank was full, had it pumped, and that didnt work, the tank lid was dug up again and the line was backflushed, but the guy was suppose to run a camera up it and didnt, so a week later we call them again, they send another out who backflushed it again and then ran a camera up it, showed the break. wanted to charge us 900 to replace the line, we cant afford that, so we got a couple local boys to dig up the old line, lay down new line, but the dude who oversaw them didnt have them put a reducer on it, so when it rains mud works its way in(going from original 3 inch line to a 4 inch) and eventually collects in what i figure is a gap where the collar connects 2 pipes, as a buildup gets worse it blocks it. we also had to send one of the boys underneath to cut out some pipe, my cousins idiot husband had put extra 90 degree bends in the line, so waste was getting slowed down, got that straightened out and it moved along much faster.

a year goes by and the line blocks again, mom was dating someone who built a house before and he came down and helped us dig up the tank lid and we managed to run a rented snake up it, he grabbed it from the cleanout with a clothes hanger, used it to wrap a hand towel around the end, and had me put it back through, when i did that shit was coming like a sausage maker. here recently we had it block again, BUT THIS TIME, God gave me the idea to ask on a message board for tradesmen if there was something i can stick down it, they told me to get a drain bladder, just hook it to your hose and turn it on(not so easy since it was winter time, snow and ice to deal with, and had to warm the hoses in the bath tub, but it worked, cost about 40 for the bladder but id much rather pay that than for a plumber to come backflush my line again.

[Mars.inDiapers]

1 hour ago, rusty pins said:

I was smelling some methane

Methane is odorless, you probably meant sulfane?

(sorry, I am kind of a nitpicker, I know ...)

[rusty pins]

1 hour ago, Mars.inDiapers said:

Methane is odorless, you probably meant sulfane?

(sorry, I am kind of a nitpicker, I know ...)

Well, I was smelling something and it wasn't shit!

[vvp39]

Sulfane? In my career as a chemist I've never run across that term. Had to google it: hydrogen sulfide. Ok, that makes sense then.