Complicated toilet flush valve

[electra225]

In the good old days, one could buy a Fluidmaster flush valve for a couple of bucks, install it in about five minutes and be out the door. Not so in the days of water conservation. Every part on an almost $20 Fluidmaster flush valve is adjustable. Where the float is positioned to shut off the water. There is an adjustment on how much water flows thru the fill tube. Even the flapper is adjustable so the water level in the bowl exactly matches how much is in the tank. 3.8 liter GPF. 1 gallon per flush unless it is set for more. The "Getting Started" manual is 12 pages, and is half in Spanish. This valve can be taken apart and a new seat put into it if it starts leaking like the old one does. Water conservation is serious business here in the desert. Even Walmart doesn't sell the regular kind of Fluidmaster valve anymore, all you can get it the fancy model.

[TC Chris]

At my cottage, where the pipes are drained every winter, the bowl-fill tube always gets plugged up with some scale at turn-on in the spring. The faucet aerators too. I learned to open the bowl-fill screw all the way to let the crud through, then close it down to fill the bowl to the right level. O take the aerators off in the fall and don't put them back in until after the pipes have filled & flushed clean water through.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

The tap water here is not fit to drink. Not poisonous or anything like that, but is has so much chlorine and elements in it, that it tastes funny. Our water conditioning system was a good investment. Not only does it remove elements that make the water hard, it removes chlorine and "forever chemicals" as well....

The cost of the system is offset in a couple years by the savings in water using appliances. A faucet only lasts about a year and water heaters only last about five years before they get eat up by the elements in the water if you don't use a water-conditioning system of some kind. Ice cubes are brown if you don't treat the water.