For the past couple weeks, our toilet has not been shutting off properly after flushing. Left unattended it would just spill over into the overflow pipe until we’d pull the lid off the tank and manually raise the float by the lever.

I had gone out last weekend to buy a new one, assuming this mechanism was failing, but I had stalled on putting it in as the shutoff valve in the bathroom wasn’t working well, and I’d have to shut off water to the whole house.

Today I thought I’d tackle this and so read the instructions. I saw a note halfway through the installation about submerging the float for 30 seconds. On a whim I decided to do that on the next flush, and while it overflowed (naturally - I was holding the float down) it spring right up after I released it.

And it’s continued to function properly ever since. Is there something besides water in that float that had to be recharged?? Dunno, but it saves me an install job.