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Does the thought of repairing your bathroom leave you flushed? Don't know the difference between a flapper valve and a ballcock? Are you thinking about remodeling your bathroom,or maybe adding a sprinkler system? This is where you go.

Ok, the toilet at my mother's needs repairing. Let me know what I need to do. The water doesn't cut off. You know the little overflow pipe thingy in the back of the toilet? The water keeps running until it runs into that thing--it just never shuts off. I know there is an adjustment that needs to be made, but I can't figure out what. Any suggestions?

The problem is probably that her float valve isn't engaging her ballcock (I am NOT making up those names. Those are the real names of them).There are two basic toilet designs,ones with a large,visible float (the sizo of a baseball)attached to it,and ones with no visible floats,just a single cylindrical thing with a small plastic arm. The one without the visible float adjusts by moving its top cap,there should be markings around its cap. The one with the large visible float (the kind that will probably be in your mothers house.They were quite commonly used in new construction well into the 90's) adjusts by SLIGHTLY bending the metal arm that connects to the float,in this case you want to bend the arm so the float is slightly lower in the water,so it stops filling before the tank overflows. So, grasping the metal bar near the toilet mechanism (the ballcock),slightly bend the bar so the float goes down,towards the bottom of the tank.Remember,this is a minor bend,dont overdo it. Repeat as needed..........If its not that,you need to replace the float valve,which isn't that difficult.But the odds are overwhelming that the float adjustments I described will solve your problem.

OK, thanks. It's times like this that I wished you lived closer and would take care of these repairs yourself.....