The Brad Hole

Yesterday, the handyman I had called the day prior showed up around 10:10 in the morning (and yes, I was awake). First, he looked at the toilets. He pretty much confirmed what I'd discovered via some googling - the toilet in the master bathroom needed some serious work. He said, in a nutshell, that the inside assembly of the tank needed to be replaced or rebuilt. Since it was the older-style, he recommended replacing. The other toilet needed a new valve, but it also had the older-style assembly (which I gather can let backflow from the toilet into the regular water line in low-pressure conditions) so he recommended replacing it as well. $130 combined for both, which I thought was reasonable.

As for the garage door, he wasn't sure what to make of it. What I knew beforehand was that one of the 2 floor sensors had blown out, so the door always thought it was obstructed and wouldn't lower. He called his office, and they didn't have any recommendations other than possibly replacing the whole unit, for $260 in labor. He also recommended I call a garage-door repair place and get a quote from them - good advice, as it turns out.

I called a "fast fix" garage door place, and they had a guy out by noon. He had a spare sensor in his truck, wired it up and we were good to go. The bracket from the old sensor didn't match the new one, so he had to tape it on. Since it was a simple fix and because it was a bit half-assed, he charged us $55, which seemed pretty fair. Googling afterwards, I discovered that a new sensor package for this model costs roughly $39, so the repair seemed reasonable.

The toilets remain a problem, however. The handyman who gave a quote of $130 also said he was booked solid for the next 6 weeks, which honestly does us no good. So I called another plumber, and they sent someone out around 2:30. His estimate for the same work? $260. When I said "that's way too expensive", he offered to do it for less if I paid him in cash. As I didn't have $200 in cash lying around, I showed him the door.

But all was not lost. Our house has a "home warranty" with a deductible of $40 which I had forgotten about since we're renters. We had our landlord call the warranty company, and they hooked us up with a plumber. The plumber called at the absolute crack of ass this morning - 8:00 am - to inform me that they'd stop by today, and that they'd call when they were in the neighborhood. I'm glad they were able to narrow down that timeframe for us. ;)

Beth's mom is arriving this evening for a week's stay, so I'm hoping we'll soon have two fully-functioning toilets. Beth's dad has a rule that he lives by: "Never pass up a working potty." I'm not sure if he has a corollary about non-working toilets.