Handy worker

I have been relying on experts to fix a lot of gadgets at home lately because daily house tech growing more and more complicated the better it becomes. Sure it breaks down less, but one can't fix it on one's own when it does... Or so I though till a very enthusiastic plumber showed me otherwise. 

I had fancy high tech concealed flush tanks installed in toilets at home last year and felt happy about how neat everything looked. I also assumed that these fancy flush tanks with their European engineering do not need much maintenance but we live in India. It can neutralise any bit of great engineering/tech. When one tank started leaking, even the contractor wouldn't trust his own plumber to fix it! When the fancy plumber trained by the company arrived he told me that even a tiniest bit of something falling in the overhead water tank can get stuck in the flush tank valve and result in water leaking into the WC. When he realised I was an architect, he demonstrated how this can be fixed. It seemed simple enough. I was confident I could fix it in the future. And the time to prove my mettle came almost half a year later when another tank started leaking.

The tricky part about fixing a leak in the tank is that it has to be done partly in the blind. The opening behind the flush plate is quite small and trying to fix it feels like a dentist fixing someone's teeth *Shudders*. I was trying to remember what I needed to do. removing the flush plate was only the beginning. Had to remove the actual flush lever parts to be able to access the fill valve which is to the left. So one can't really see it while shutting off the water supply, unlocking the clip and snapping it out of the inlet. When the thing came out, and I removed the top clip to open and clean it, the whole thing just came apart. Disintegrated right in front of my eyes. High drama, but it's meant to do that after all. Spotted the problem and cleaned it.

Snapped the valve back in place, locked the clip, switched the valve on and wasted another 10-15 L of water to check if it had stopped leaking. It had. Fixed the rest of it back in place and realised I may never need to call a plumber again. After having spent twenty minutes studying the internal workings of this flush tank, I believe I can fix other parts of the flush tank or install replacements on my own too.

There is a method to the complicated European engineering madness. Once you understand one tiny bit, it's not difficult to figure out the rest. Having said that, I'm never attempting to fix the washing machine on my own.