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May 31, 2023

5 Ways Neglecting Your Bathroom Can Cost You

It's the one room that needs to work. Here's how to keep it ticking. The

It's the one room that needs to work. Here's how to keep it ticking.

The bathroom is the one room in your house that really needs to work. It's also the least glamorous repair job imaginable though it can have a huge impact on your wallet if you neglect simple maintenance. If you get in the habit of doing these five oft-neglected repairs, you'll thankfully run into fewer unwanted surprises.

A loose toilet is more than a wobbly throne. If it shifts enough, the toilet's water-tight bond with its wax seal will break, and you’ll leak a little water with every flush. Instead of going down the drain, that gross water leaks into the ceiling cavity of the room below, a crawl space, or into any gaps and cracks in a concrete slab, or below it.

HOW TO FIX:

Pull the toilet and remount it with a new flange and a new wax seal. Note that there isn't a one-size-fits all solution for replacing the flange or the seal. Pull the toilet and see what you’ve got because there are several types of flange repair kits.

If everything goes according to plan, but the flange bolts spin or pull through the slot, consider these Big Foot Bolts. Don't forget Fluidmaster's extra-thick wax seal either in remodeled bathrooms or where a tiled floor makes for a difficult joint to get a water-tight seal.

A leaking flapper valve wastes water and increases wear on the toilet. The flapper is the simple flap-like seal that keeps water in the toilet tank. When you push the flush lever down, it lifts the flapper up, because a chain connects the two. Water rushes out of the tank and flushes the toilet. When the flapper leaks, water trickles out of the tank and into the bowl and down the drain. This slow leak will eventually trip the toilet's fill valve, which will open and admit water into the tank. This cycle will continue indefinitely.

HOW TO FIX:

Replacing a leaking flapper valve is a five-minute job with this universal flapper.

A dripping faucet wastes water and can be incredibly annoying when it keeps you up at night.

HOW TO FIX:

Replace the faucet's valve. Give yourself a crash course in valve replacement here, then match the removed valve with a replacement.

Here are some of our favorite choices. There's this Delta two-handle and this American Standard center set for widespread lavatory and bath faucets. These Grohe ceramic sets for kitchens and lavatories or this MultiChoice set from Delta give you flexibility.

Grout is the tile's last line of defense. Water that gets through grout gaps will eventually find its way behind a tile, making it that much more likely that it will pop off the wall.

HOW TO FIX:

A simple squeeze tube of pre-mixed grout seals the gap, and you can re-attach a tile using tile paste adhesive.

To remove adhesive or thin-set mortar from the wall surface or the tile back, use a carbide sanding rasp or this other option from Rockwell.

Hardened soap scum builds up on tub and tile surfaces until it gets to the point of looking so shabby that somebody attacks the surface with an inappropriate cleaner and methods like scouring powder and steel wool or even power tools. The result is damaged surfaces and a degraded bathroom.

HOW TO FIX:

Use a professional-strength soap-scum remover and appropriate methods.

Or get a kit of products that attacks the variety of soils and deposits on the tub and shower surfaces. This kit contains specific cleaners for just about any surface your bathroom is liable to contain.

For really heavily soiled surfaces, use this concentrated cleaner.

Roy Berendsohn has worked for more than 25 years at Popular Mechanics, where he has written on carpentry, masonry, painting, plumbing, electrical, woodworking, blacksmithing, welding, lawn care, chainsaw use, and outdoor power equipment. When he's not working on his own house, he volunteers with Sovereign Grace Church doing home repair for families in rural, suburban and urban locations throughout central and southern New Jersey.

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