Do It Gorgeously: How to Make Less Toxic, Less Expensive, and More Beautiful Products (40 page)

Compact fluorescent lightbulbs:
By now almost all of us have replaced at least a few incandescent lightbulbs (the old rounded ones) with new, energy-efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. You have probably heard that CFL bulbs contain mercury. Given that many countries are currently planning to stop production of incandescent lightbulbs, should we be concerned about the mercury in the new bulbs?

Compact fluorescent bulbs contain a tiny amount of mercury—less than would fit on the tip of the point of a pencil. The biggest source of mercury pollution globally is coal-fired power plants. This means that over its lifetime, an old-school energy-guzzling bulb will potentially emit more mercury into the atmosphere than its curly cousin. So if you’re concerned about poisoning the soil and water with mercury, you’re better off reducing the amount of energy you use by switching every bulb in your house to a CFL. If your bulb breaks, just open the windows in the room, carefully sweep it up, and place it in two or three plastic bags, which you should seal and take to your nearest hazardous waste disposal. To find where your nearest one is, visit Earth 911 (www.earth911.com). Type in “hazardous” and your zip code. It will show you the nearest drop-offs to your home. Many stores now collect used CFL lightbulbs, or you can go to Earth 911 to find out where to recycle them. Keep in mind that certain brands of bulbs contain less mercury than others, so read the packaging. I also recommend buying a name brand, as the cheaper bulbs burn out quickly and often contain more mercury.

I suggest going around your home and making sure that every CFL bulb is the lowest wattage possible. If you can get away with a 14-watt CFL bulb (equivalent to 60-watt incandescent bulb) instead of a 24-watt CFL (100-watt incandescent), make the switch.

Bathroom Bliss

To my great pleasure, I’ve discovered that I don’t need to hire an expensive plumber or handyman for the following boring but important tasks.

DISCOVERING AND FIXING A LEAKING TOILET

One of the most alarming ways in which hundred of gallons of water can be wasted is through a leaking toilet. The really annoying thing is that these leaks are often “silent” and so hard to detect. On the other hand, your toilet might keep running after it’s been flushed—very annoying!

To find out if there’s a sneaky leak, take the following steps.

1. Remove the lid from your toilet tank.
   
2. Drop a few drops of food dye or some instant coffee into the tank—anything that will give the water a deep color.
   
3. Wait 30 minutes and make sure nobody uses the toilet.
   
4. If you find any of the colored water in the toilet bowl, your toilet is leaking.
   

How to fix the leak:
If you see water leaking from your toilet onto your bathroom floor, take immediate action and call a plumber. If, however, the problem is water leaking into the bowl, you can definitely take care of this yourself. The usual symptom of this problem is that you can hear water running periodically as your toilet tank refills long after the last flush, or the water is running constantly. If this is what you hear, you’ll need to adjust the water level in your toilet tank. I can think of many things I’d rather do than fiddle around with a ball cock or refill valve—yes, I know, even the mere mention has me running to Mr. Rooter—but learning these simple fixing tips below has saved me hundreds of dollars over the years.

Adjusting the water level:
First, take the lid off your toilet tank and look for the overflow tube. Worry not, this is easy to detect and is, as it sounds, a large white hollow tube in the center of the tank. If the water level gets too high in the tank, it flows over the top of this overflow tube and drains into your toilet bowl.

It’s all about the float:
The float either looks like a big plastic softball attached to the end of a metal rod, or it’ll be a plastic cylinder that slides up and down a plastic shaft.

If lifting the float shuts off the water, you’ll need to adjust the float so it shuts off the water at a lower water level.

To adjust the plastic-ball type, you can either turn the adjusting screw at the end of the rod opposite the float, or you can actually bend the rod slightly downward. Bending it will often work, but obviously be careful not to snap it in half.

To adjust the cylindrical-float type, look for the thin metal rod connecting the float to a valve-arm. The metal rod has an adjusting clip you can pinch, allowing you to move the float farther down in the water.

After making this adjustment to the float, flush your toilet and observe the tank as it refills. The valve should shut off when the water is about ¼ inch below the top of the overflow tube. Readjust the float if needed.

If, however, when you lift the float, you see water overflowing into the overflow tube, the float is not working to shut off the water when the tank is full, so the refill assembly needs to be replaced.
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The flapper:
If the problem is not water flowing over the overflow tube, it may be leaking through the stopper at the bottom of the tank. The stopper at the bottom is called a flapper. It looks like a large white bath plug that goes up and down.

When the flapper is leaking, the water level in the tank will go down very slowly until the float drops enough to start refilling the tank.

If this is happening, the flapper may not be sealing well because of (1) an improperly adjusted pull-chain, (2) an obstruction or built-up mineral deposits from the water, or (3) a deteriorated flapper.

To correct this, turn off the water supply to your toilet (using the valve handle on the wall or floor behind the toilet), and flush to empty the tank.

First, flush your toilet and have a look at the chain that pulls up on the flapper. When you release the handle allowing the flapper to fall back to its closed position, you should see a little slack in the chain and it shouldn’t be getting hung up on anything to prevent the flapper from sealing completely. If this is the problem, adjust the chain.

Also, lift up on the flapper and observe the surfaces that form the seal, looking for any mineral deposits. Clean these surfaces gently with water and a scrubbing sponge.

The flapper could also be old and the rubber deteriorating. If the rubber is cracked, brittle, or warped, remove the flapper and buy a replacement from your hardware store.

If the flapper looks in good condition, but it’s still leaking after you clean it and adjust the chain, replace it anyway.

Is your toilet low-flow?
Unless you have a post-1992 toilet, it’s likely to be low-flow. To check whether it is or not, put down the seat and check for a flush volume stamp between the seat and tank. If the stamp reads
“1.6 gpf/6.0 lpf,”
your toilet is a low-flow model. This stamp is sometimes found on the inner back wall of the toilet tank.

If by any chance you have an old high-flow toilet, you can make it low flow by taking a few easy steps, as follows:

1. Find an old 1-liter plastic water bottle.
   
2. Fill it with small rocks, stones, and/or sand. A funnel may come in handy for this.
   
3. Place it in at the bottom of your water tank, taking great care to make sure it’s not obstructing any of the flushing equipment.
   

REGROUTING/RECAULKING YOUR TUB AND SHOWER

There’s nothing more unsightly than stained or grimy grout. Regrouting your tub can give it a total face-lift. No need for a handyman here—I have regrouted mine and a few of my girlfriends’ a number of times. Everyone’s thrilled with the results.

You may also need to re-caulk around your tub, where the tub meets the tile. The caulk is important in providing a protective seal. Chipped or peeling caulk can be a breeding ground for mold.

Before you start, establish whether you intend to regrout the whole tiled area around your shower and tub, or just the caulking around your tub. If the tile grouting looks like it’s seen better days, I recommend doing the whole thing.

Tip:
Bathtubs expand when they are filled with water, so you need to start off with a tub full of water before you put in the new caulk. Wait half an hour after applying the caulk, then empty the tub. Leave the caulk for another hour and fill the tub again. Because of the expanding and contracting that’s taken place, the caulk will be securely set and less likely to loosen or chip.

Regrouting

HOW TO

1.
Choose your grout color. This is important, as you don’t want to get neon white if your tiles are cream.

2.
Scrub the existing grout and the tiles with a homemade grout cleaner (see “Thrifty and Nifty”).

3.
Use a chisel to remove the dirty, chipped grout that needs to come out. You may need to remove all the caulk from the strip around the tub.

4.
Vacuum out all the tiny chips and grout dust.

5.
Clean the tiles and surrounding area with a bunch of old rags. Dry off the tile.

6.
Spread the new grout all over the tiles using the grout float—this part is great fun! Use the float to push the grout into the empty spaces between the tiles.

7.
Run the float across the top of the tiles, smoothing away the excess grout.

8.
Wait 10 minutes and then wipe a wet sponge all over the surface of the tiles.

9.
Leave the grout to set for 3 days without using your shower.

10.
To seal the grout with the grout sealer, apply it to the grout liberally, using a sponge, a dry lint-free rag, a small brush, or any other tool that can be used comfortably. One coat is generally sufficient.