If it ain't broke...

Toilet tank valves only have a limited life. The cheap, easy-to-replace ones, like I use, only have so many flushes in them. The one that was in the master bathroom seemed like it had lasted a very long time. I was checking in the tank every few months to see how it was doing. Up till now it was doing great. I opened the tank this morning, flushed and the thing failed right in front of me. It had worked fine an hour earlier when I got up. Now, however it happened, it would not shut off. Basic fiddling didn't help. I learned my lesson a few changes ago. Having had the thing fail minutes before the hardware stores closed and faced an evening and night with no running water in the house (the local shut-off valve at the toilet doesn't quite work), I decided to keep a spare in the house.

It used to be less of a mess to change. The things came in two pieces and the bottom that attached directly to the water line was almost fail proof. You shut off the water, undid the top which was entirely inside the tank, put a new top on and you were done. About a dozen years ago (maybe when the valves started being made in China) some genius got the idea to save money and make it in one piece. Now, you have to remove the whole thing from the tank every time. That means you need a large rectangular pan on the floor. This is because a common bucket wide enough to catch all the water draining out of the toilet tank won't fit under a modern toilet in any reasonable fashion. I guess I really ought to start buying a better valve so it will last longer between changes. But this last one did quite well, and when you are prepared it's not a scary job.