I recently had a problem with a toilet that wouldn’t quit running; Unblessedly, I noticed the problem in the middle of the night.
I took the lid off the tank & realized that if I elevated the float arm, the toilet quit running. I tried making adjustments to the arm however had no success. I managed to prop a butter knife on the side of the tank & wedge it under the float arm to maintain elevation, but this stopped the toilet from running so that I could get some sleep. In the day, I googled how to service the toilet as a DIY project. I took a picture with my smartphone of the components within the tank & headed to my local hardware store, because of the age of my toilet, none of the available parts were exactly the same as my original parts. I consulted with an employee of the hardware store who made a recommendation. I then returned cabin with my modern toilet parts & assembled the necessary tools for the task. I found a Youtube video with step by step instruction. The first step was to shut off the water to the toilet. That is when I discovered that the shut-off valve to the toilet was also broken! No matter how I twisted that valve, the water kept running… After googling instruction for repairing the valve, I decided to contact a licensed plumber. I no longer felt confident in my abilities & was totally miserable with the whole project. I was willing to spend money just about anything to have a correctly laboring toilet.