Replacing toilet flush and fill valves

The toilet in the en suite was suffering with terrible water hammer when it had been flushed. This manifested itself as a loud hum that rattled through most of the upstairs, which was quite an embuggerance.

I did a bit of research and found the culprit was most likely the fill valve, and saw that Fluidmaster appeared to be the best replacement. I then found a kit that also included a replacement flush valve, with a half flush function, so decided to go with that while I had it all apart, we're on a water meter after all.

I isolated the water feed to the cistern, and immediately noticed it was weeping a small amount of water. I got the two screws securing the cistern out, which were considerably rusted, disconnected the overflow and feed, then wound off the two wing nuts holding the cistern to the pan and lifted it off. At this point I noticed the existing doughnut and clamp were in poor condition.

The cistern was then taken outside and all the old gubbins removed, and it got a good hosing and scrubbing down as it was full of mould. I suspect this is due to the cold air from the external overflow disagreeing with the warmer air inside.

Once clean, I assembled the new flush mechanism. I had to use the insert as the hole was 2.25" rather than 2", but a standard 2" close coupling kit worked fine.   The backing plate goes on first, then the large plastic nut over the top, and then the doughnut with the rounded end to the bottom.

At this point I realised I didn't need the external overflow as there was now an internal one, so had to source a blanking plug which was then fitted. I couldn't install the fill valve just yet as it blocked access to the right hand mounting screw so left this out for now. The flush button was attached and the nut wound up tight, and the flush cable attached.

Next, the cistern was brought back up stairs and offered up to the pan with the new bolts in place. The wing nuts were tightened, which brought the previous rail plugs back into view through the mounting holes, and two new screws and penny washers secured that.

I then went to fit the fill valve into place, and noticed it was a longer length than the previous one. As the isolator valve was leaking I thought it best to replace with a flexible connector with isolator built in, so another trip out to screwfix.

I turned the water off, and cut off the 15mm copper feed pipe at a sensible length to allow for the new flexible pipe. As the pipe had been painted I filed it down and wire brushed it to get back to the copper to ensure a proper connection.  When assembling the fitting, I remembered a guy in the pub told me when using compression fittings, a wrap of PTFE round the olive will mean it will never leak, and so far it's been a success. The fill valve was then fitted and tightened, and a few wraps of PTFE on the screw threaded end and fitted the flexible pipe.

I turned the water back on, no leaks on the new isolator, so I turned the isolator on and allowed a bit of water into the cistern and shut it off again and checked for leaks - all good again. I turned the isolator back on and allowed it to fill up and checked the levels which were all correct at their standard settings. I held the fill float down and proved the overflow, which worked fine. Last test was to flush and check the doughnut didn't leak, again success.

I was very impressed with the new setup, so much so that I fitted the same to the two other toilets in the house! The only job left to do is to fill in the holes from the now removed external overflows.

Here's a list of all the parts I ended up needing...1 of each per toilet...once again all from Screwfix

Fluidmaster fill and flush valve
Close coupling kit
Cistern blanking plug
300mm flexible tap connector with isolator
PTFE tape
15mm pipe slice

And here's some pictures of the finished article...

Installing a wall mounted TV with hidden cables

One of the very first jobs I did in the house was sticking the bedroom TV to the wall. I mounted the same TV to the wall using the same bracket I used in the old house, the only difference was that I needed different fixings. I used two types of plasterboard fixings as a form of redundancy , and also managed to find one of the wooden studs so fired in a 2.5 inch no. 8 wood screw as well.

The stud wall made it much easier to retrofit the hidden cabling that I really wanted. I was lucky in that directly below where the TV is now mounted, there is a double socket and an aerial point. I also have a PVR/Bluray player so needed to have a HDMI cable between the TV and this.

I set to and removed the aerial faceplate and back box, and fished up and found the noggin in the stud wall, verified by shoving the phone in on video mode with the flash on. I decided to cut out a new double box above the existing double socket, as the existing single one was tight up against a stud, and also the existing hole in the noggin was central so it'd all line up better.

I then cut 3 holes in the wall, using my Makita multi tool which made it easy and neat. The first hole was a double box above the double socket, then cut out a square to expose the noggin, and then cut out a single box behind the TV position. Once these were done, I slotted out the existing hole in the noggin with the multi tool as there will be a lot more cables running through now.

With the hard work done, all that was left was to clip in the plastic dry line boxes, pull in the cables (1x power, 1x hdmi, 1x aerial coax), screw in the modular faceplates, and terminate the existing aerial cable in its new module. I pushed a Cat5 module in the spare way in the bottom box, as I will run a load of ethernet cables in at some point, and I had one laying around.

Parts used were as follows (from Screwfix as they were local)

1x 1 gang dryline box
1x 2 gang dryline box
1x 1 gang 2 module faceplate
1x 2 gang 4 module faceplate
2x flex module
1x aerial module

Here's some pictures of the finished result. The hole in the middle still needs patching and plastering, but I am having a plasterer in for some other work anyway. If it wasn't for this, it would just be a case of screwing a piece of plasterboard into place, taping, skim with easi fill and sanding down until a smooth finish is achieved.

Welcome...

I've set up this blog to keep track of the various bits and pieces I get up to. I've got a few things on the go, a Land Rover Defender, a Sinclair C5, and a house in rural Lincolnshire that I've just moved in to.

I've got big plans for all of the above, and haven't had time to do the things I enjoy doing (i.e. my many projects) until recently, thanks to a busy job and having to totally renovate my previous house. Both brought considerable experience, but now it's time for something a bit different.

The intention is that posting this in a blog format will allow people searching for information on how to do similar things to come across it, and hopefully it'll help someone out.

I've done a few bits to the house already, so there will be some retrospective posts with not many pictures of the before/during.

I hope some of this will be of use to someone out there!

Cheers,

Sam