Saved by the cat/nine blooming years
Posted: April 20th, 2021, 10:36 am
This morning 0500h, the cat decides to resume its persecution of the local mice.
The wife descends to let it out.
Then a holler from below, "there's water running into the shower room".
More to the point, the toilet. We just call it the shower room because, well, you know.
Hustle downstairs expecting to find water dripping through the ceiling, but no, the 1960s loo cistern has cracked. Not where the seat opens against it, but lower, horizontal, a good 12" of crack. Why??
Water pouring onto the cherry-wood floor.
The water shutoff valve was painted over by PO - on my Things To Do list - and of course inop.
Eventually, the water was shut off by tying up the ball valve.
Could have happened any time. We were very lucky to catch it early.
Given time, it could and would have run into the rest of the ground floor rooms, so I shall now insert a little upstand to ensure that if ever there is another escape, the water will run out under the front door.
Now ... this morning the search for a replacement cistern began.
No suitable antiques available locally, so it has to be new.
Why are there so many different loo cisterns?
Talk about complicating a simple process.
Eventually find the necessary spec at a local Wolseley - mid-height, side fill, BS dimensions. Space is tight, so thank goodness British Standards have survived our sojourn in the EU. But it's modern, I hate modern.
Anyway, now there's just the usual imperial/metric issues to plumb it in.
Until last year we had a spare antique cistern in stock. Deco, Shanks, nice condition.
I bought it in 2011 at an antiques auction, intending to fit it in place of the 1960s placeholder. It sat in the bottom of the airing cupboard. Then, for domestic reasons shall we say, it got moved to the garage where I knocked the lid over and broke it.
Nine years we had that cistern sitting there. Nine blooming years
V8
The wife descends to let it out.
Then a holler from below, "there's water running into the shower room".
More to the point, the toilet. We just call it the shower room because, well, you know.
Hustle downstairs expecting to find water dripping through the ceiling, but no, the 1960s loo cistern has cracked. Not where the seat opens against it, but lower, horizontal, a good 12" of crack. Why??
Water pouring onto the cherry-wood floor.
The water shutoff valve was painted over by PO - on my Things To Do list - and of course inop.
Eventually, the water was shut off by tying up the ball valve.
Could have happened any time. We were very lucky to catch it early.
Given time, it could and would have run into the rest of the ground floor rooms, so I shall now insert a little upstand to ensure that if ever there is another escape, the water will run out under the front door.
Now ... this morning the search for a replacement cistern began.
No suitable antiques available locally, so it has to be new.
Why are there so many different loo cisterns?
Talk about complicating a simple process.
Eventually find the necessary spec at a local Wolseley - mid-height, side fill, BS dimensions. Space is tight, so thank goodness British Standards have survived our sojourn in the EU. But it's modern, I hate modern.
Anyway, now there's just the usual imperial/metric issues to plumb it in.
Until last year we had a spare antique cistern in stock. Deco, Shanks, nice condition.
I bought it in 2011 at an antiques auction, intending to fit it in place of the 1960s placeholder. It sat in the bottom of the airing cupboard. Then, for domestic reasons shall we say, it got moved to the garage where I knocked the lid over and broke it.
Nine years we had that cistern sitting there. Nine blooming years
V8
It can be really hard to find suitably retro toilets these days, unless you're willing to fork out absurd amounts of money. When we bought Bungee Towers in the 1990s (a total restoration project), we had seven washbasins and three toilets to buy, and since we were broke, we had the good fortune to find a cheap Chinese range that were the dead spit of authentic Shanks. We bought it in the expectation that we'd keep it for six or seven years and replace it when we could afford it, but 27 years later it still looks like the real deal. (Give or take a few more tasteful toilet flush handles.) Only the taps and sink drains have needed replacing. 
