My $12 toilet fill valve turned into a $200 plumbing lesson

I tried swapping out a leaky Fluidmaster in my duplex in Omaha last Tuesday. Figured it was a 15 minute job, but I cross-threaded the supply line and water sprayed everywhere behind the toilet. Took me 3 trips to Home Depot and a wet vacuum rental to fix the mess I made. Has anyone else had a cheap repair spiral into something way bigger than it should have been?

3 comments

3 Comments

henry_martinez23d ago

Oh man, I feel your pain. I once turned a toilet flapper into a flooded basement.

phoenix_carter23d ago

A "15 minute job" turned into me accidentally painting my bathroom ceiling with chocolate milk after a similar mishap.

elizabeth90023d ago

Oh wow, that is both hilarious and terrible at the same time! I had a similar thing happen with pancake mix, and I swear @phoenix_carter, the cleanup is the real nightmare. I was just trying to whisk up a quick breakfast and accidentally launched a glob of batter straight at the ceiling fan, which then flung it around like a spatter paint project gone wrong. Took me an hour to scrub little dried bits of breakfast off the light fixtures, and I still find a random fleck on the wall sometimes. At least you got chocolate milk, which probably smells a lot nicer than raw batter when you're wiping it down. So now both of our ceilings have their own food-themed "art" apparently.