oh man, I am trying to plug my late era Roman history ignorance gap and it is a total struggle, very much like trying to get a grip on Egyptian century-by-century pharaonic heritance or Chinese imperial regimes. there are too many names of unfamiliar provenance. they slip around one another like tadpoles in a pond.

about a minute ago there was a HUGE lightning strike just north of our house. man, scary.

whenever something like that happens i think about what it must be like to live under an artillery barrage. not a desirable thing.

This week, our water bill came in. it was for five hundred dollars. i freaked out, of course.

a bit of elimination (rimshot) (double rimshot) pointed to the ancient toilet downstairs, to which I have done various maintenance things over the years, including reseating it and replacing the flapper.

The primary culprit was the old and corroded refill valve, which appears to be original 1967 vintage. So I swapped that out for a new $10 refill assembly with a leak-sensing refill feature that would prevent the tank from refilling if there was a drainage link.

Sure enough, there was a leak in the base of the drain which slowly would add the tank water to the bowl. so i had to replace the drain valve assembly.
This involved taking the back tank off the toilet and jerry rigging a range of bolts and washers to successfully implement the tension join at the base of the tank. This took three trips to home depot and I am awaiting the verdict on the most recent install.

so the non-labor repair costs as of this moment are about $30. a whole new unit was $50. they also had a low-flow model with a city of seattle $30 rebate for $88, but it was out of stock.

i think it is likely that if this install attempt fails, I will just have to go with a new unit.