Part Three
Toilets
A toilet has no motor and very few moving parts, which is why it repays an hour of attention better than almost anything else in the house. This part starts by following one flush from the handle to the drain, so that the faults that come later have somewhere to sit. Then it takes those faults in the order most people meet them: the tank that will not stop running, the bowl that will not clear, and the base that has begun to rock or weep. Nearly all of this work is yours to do, with a sponge, a plunger and a few inexpensive parts. Where the job reaches the flange, the floor or the pipe below it, we say so, and you can decide how far you want to go.