Repairing a Toilet, the Dummy Version

Toilet Flush Kit in the toilet tank

As our research team members patrol the internet in search of freelance stupidity, time and time again they return to websites in the former Demand Media (now Leaf Group) family such as eHow.com, Sciencing, Techwalla, Cuteness... Why? Mostly because the sites are a target-rich environment at which serial dumbasses published reams of poorly researched content, that's why. Today, we'll let eHow contributor Nathan McGinty prove our point with a post called "How to Replace a Toilet Flush Kit"¹ at the eHow mother site; now found at HomeSteady.com.

One of eHow's vast cadre of "Communications" graduates, McGinty's been here before to show his ignorance of DIY electrical work. He's back again, this time showing how little he knows about DIY plumbing. According to Nathan's shoddy research,

"A toilet flush kit typically includes a flapper and chain assembly..."

...which, all of our experienced DIY plumbers, say is right, though only half right. A toilet flush kit can refer to one of two things: a kit to convert a toilet to hands-free flushing or a kit to replace the wear items in the tank. The wear items include not just the flapper (and chain) but also the fill valve – and the fill valve is the hard part to replace. McGinty ignored it in favor of replacing the flapper, quite frankly the easy part. Nathan left a clue about replacing the fill valve, because his instructions say to turn off the water supply, and "Remove the toilet lid. Press the handle to flush the toilet. Continue pressing down on the handle until all the water inside the tank empties. Wipe up any remaining water with the sponge and towel."

You can certainly replace a flapper without wiping all the water from the bottom of the tank. It's no big deal, as long as you don't mind getting your fingers wet. The real reason, however, for wiping the water out of the bottom of the tank is because you have to take off the fill valve, and it's at pretty much the lowest point of the tank. McGinty's instructions for replacing this valve consist of

"  -------  { THIS SPACE LEFT BLANK }  -------  "
Yup: it must've been too hard, because even though his references mentioned replacing the fill valuce, McGinty didn't bother. Any idiot can replace a flapper, guys, but it apparently takes someone smarter than the average communications major to replace the fill valve on a toilet!

The guy got paid (admittedly by people who didn't much care about accuracy, only about SEO) to do a half-assed job of describing a DIY plumbing job that's tedious but actually fairly easy. Of course if you do want instructions on replacing a toilet flush kit, all you need to do is buy one and read the included instruction sheet. Maybe if McGinty had ever done that he wouldn't be picking up another Dumbass of the Day award... or maybe not.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_7518981_replace-toilet-flush-kit.html

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