This is a close up of a FIXED Australian cistern.
A few days ago, our septic overflowed. Septic here is often a small tank, that leeches into the ground. Our septic was full because our ground is so saturated with water from the rains, that it doesn't leech very quickly. The water table is very near the surface, and as such, we depend mostly on the bacteria in the tank to eat the septic up and leech the water.
(for those unfamiliar with how a septic system works, don't worry I'll spare you further details (-;).
I tracked down the cause of this overflow by two methods:
1 - I had no idea where the tank was since I never installed it and found out by following my nose
and
2 - the lid wasn't below the surface, it was near my bedroom window.
I kept telling my wife as we go to sleep at night for a week, 'that funny smell, is NOT me... what is that?'
Long story short;
The toilet had broken, and was flooding water very slowly into the septic tank, filling it up. A small plastic piece, specially shaped to stop the flow of water when the float bob raised, had broken in two.
EASY fix right? head on down to the local hardware store and buy the internals to a toilet.
WAIT.. no one sells the internals to these things?
Okay buy the top half of a toilet then.
$75.00 and a 6 hour drive. Okay crazy glue? Except the crazy glue here doesn't work like it's supposed to, it comes out tacky instead of liquid possibly because of the heat, and once you open the tube, it's worthless the next day. So I don't keep it around too much. I considered duct tape, but tape and water don't mix well.
I asked around if anyone had half of a broken toilet I could scrounge from, but I couldn't find the right piece from those.
A 25 cent plastic piece broke. THERE HAS to be a better way.
So, I scrounged up a thick bit of old sheet metal, looks like it used to be used for some sort of radio bracket. Traced out what I thought the piece should look like.
Took an angle grinder to it, and made a small 2 inch piece of metal, specially shaped with a hole through it... mounted it in place of the cheap plastic piece that broke.
and.. viola... FIXED TOILET.
I was pretty proud of my fix. Admittedly, first I tried wood. I always try a wood fix first, but then I quickly went to metal, seeing as how wood rots slower than metal rusts.
You can see the piece in the pic above, top right. It's shaped like a little tiny noched pistol, but you can't see that part.
That's my jury-rig of the week.
I'm proud of myself for having been able to shape the piece and cut it precisely enough to fit where it needed to go.
Total cost $0. saved myself $75.00 and a 6 hour drive!
I came bursting out of the bathroom, beating my chest and raising my arms in triumph.
"Wife of mine, children, gather around, I have accomplished a great feat!"
and my wife replied,
"that's great dear, but most of us conquered that activity when we were five."
pa dum ta.
no she didn't say that, but it would have been really funny had she.
what she actually said was
"okay?!?!?"
"I fixed the toilet!"
"it was broken?"
doh!
Well, jury riggers unite, revel in my newly fixed toilet, and stay tuned for the next jury rig saga.
