I woke up a little after midnight today and noticed that the nightlight in the bathroom was out. I also noticed that the clock in the bedroom was dark. I didn’t put those two facts together (I guess I wasn’t really awake) until nearly 3am, when our Amazon Echo woke me up when it started to glow brightly, and I realized that the power had gone out sometime after we went to sleep and had just been restored.

This morning, I looked at my phone and found a number of messages. PG&E had sent three – one just before midnight telling me that our house was one of 12 without power due to equipment failure, one telling me that a crew was on the way, and one telling me that power had been restored. I also got two messages from Enphase, our solar system provider, telling me that we’d gone off-grid at 11:24pm and that power had been restored at 2:53am.

We’d had to choose six circuits to keep powered up in the event of a problem. We’d chosen the circuits powering the computers, the cooktop, the kitchen outlets, and the refrigerator. This was the first test of the battery’s ability to keep the house functioning, and it worked as planned – the refrigerator behaved just as it did the rest of the day, and the network (and computers) all stayed up.

I’d decided not to back up any lighting circuits because it’s easy to get a couple of rechargeable LED lanterns and keep them charged; I guess I really ought to get those lanterns sometime soon!

One of our toilets started leaking a few weeks ago; it’s a Toto, so I got the Korky 2023 adjustable flapper and set to work. My particular toilet needs the “flapper plug” to be inserted in the flapper, but it wouldn’t stay in place. I installed the flapper without the plug and it helped, but it wasn’t a real fix.

I called Korky to complain, and they sent me a complete replacement flapper kit. This time, the plug stayed in place in the flapper. I installed the new flapper today and…the toilet still leaked.

A web search on “toilet leaks after replacing flapper” took me to an article at I’ll Just Fix It Myself with six possible causes and fixes. The toilet is a one-piece model, so I didn’t have to worry about t-bolts, and tightening the flange bolts didn’t help. The drain didn’t seem clogged, but I decided to try to unclog it anyway. I followed the instructions at Mr. Rooter, and it worked!

I don’t understand the physics of toilets; in particular, I don’t understand how the toilet can flush with a clogged drain, nor how a clogged drain can keep the flapper from sealing properly. But I guess it’s like magic – if you perform the invocation properly, you get the right result whether you understand it or not!