Picked up a 1972 DIY plumbing manual for 50 cents and it saved me $300

I found this beat up book at a library sale in Akron last fall that had a whole chapter on fixing toilet flappers with stuff you have in your kitchen. My toilet started running two weeks ago and I was about to call a plumber. Followed the diagram to swap a rubber gasket using an old yogurt container lid as a shim. It actually held for 8 days so far. Has anyone else had luck with these old fix-it books from the 70s?

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christopher671d ago

Gotta disagree with you a bit here man. Those old books are fun to look at but half the fixes they suggest are dangerous or just don't work with modern plumbing. I tried a "use a coat hanger to unclog a drain" trick from a 1975 book and ended up scratching the hell out of my PVC pipes. The yogurt lid thing is clever but it's a temporary patch, not a real fix. Plumbers see that kind of stuff all the time and it usually causes bigger problems down the line. Spend the few bucks on a proper toilet flapper kit from Home Depot, it'll last years not days. Just my two cents lol.