“Flip-It” Real Good
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012Old homes come with problems, and ours has many. Our bathtub has no stopper. It appears that at some point in time (before we owned it) someone felt the need to remove the drain stopper. You know, the round piece of metal that keeps the water from going down that drain thing.
With this tub being the only one in the house we need it to hold water. Grayson was outgrowing he little blow up ducky tub FAST. The previous owners just used a rubber removable stopper that just didn’t hold water. We threw that thing out first thing. Derek and I are both shower people so until now there has been no need for a stopper.
Here is what we were working with…


The old water release lever was still installed, and we wanted something where we didn’t have to worry about figuring out how to remove it. We tried a few different stoppers we found at the hardware store, but nothing fit our wonky sized drain. To the interwebs I flew in search of something, anything that might work for our crazy old water hole.
Then it happened, I stumbled upon something called the “Flip-It“. This thing is awesome y’all. It has the versatility of fitting different sized drains like the crapy old rubber stopper, but the look of a quality metal drain stopper. They are actually made of plastic, but for the price and ease of instillation…I’ll take it.

The Flip-It fits drains from 1 3/8″ to 1 5/8″. And ours was right smack dab in the middle. Praise the Lord!
To install this bad boy just follow the simple instructions on the back of the package.

In the group of photos below I wanted to show you a few things. The top left image shows what you will find when you open the package (10 various sized o-rings), the top right image is showing the underside of the stopper, and the bottom shows all 10 of the o-rings (minus the 3 Derek used with our stopper). Each size ring has a twin. So you get two o-rings in every size. I think 4 of them are actually the same size. That must be the “average” size of a tub flange.

And as luck would have it I had to go chase after the kid and didn’t get any pics of how he arranged the rings, but he did tell me what he did. Since we have such an old home things tend to not fit when it comes to updating and/or replacing items that have worn out. Yippee! The packaging states to use two of the rubber rings to customize the fit of the stopper, but the only way we were able to get the stopper to fit was by using 3 rings. Using only two (and we tried every possible arrangement of two rings…pinky swear) every combination was either to BIG or to small. wah…wah…
As you can see in the photo above we had to use two of the small fat o-rings and one of the middle o-ring. Now check out the image below. See the two red arrows? (I added the arrows) Derek applied the two small fat o-rings in the two grooves provided, but things still were a tad loose so he also added the middle sized o-ring where the blue arrow shows to give it a bit of extra snugness.
It suggest adding a bit of liquid soap when trying to fit the stopper into the drain. It lessens the friction just long enough to wedge the stopper into place.

We haven’t attempted it, but I assume you can remove the stopper as needed. In our house it would be to remove globs and globs of my hair. (TMI?…sorry) It does make the drain a bit slower draining, but that’s to be expected. I mean, hello! you’re sticking a huge hunk of plastic in the drain hole.
To drain or to keep the water from draining all you do is flip the toggle on the top of the stopper to the desired position. They show that you can do it with your toe, but I’ve never been successful. Maybe I’m just not trying hard enough, because I don’t want to pop the darn thing out. But it’s plenty easy to flip with your hand, but not to easy that an infant or toddler would end up draining all the water from the tub while splashing around in there.
One of my favorite things about the Flip-It tub stopper is that they offer four finishes brass, antique brass, crome, and brushed nickel. We went with the brushed nickel to match the rest of our bathroom fixtures. It matches pretty well, don’t you think?

Hey you! Stop looking at the stains around my drain. I’ve got an 80 year old house. A magic eraser can rid a tub of many things, but some things it just can’t budge. Boo.
Here’s a peek of the stopper in place. Ahhh…the joy of having a kid. You child proof everything including the tub. Thank goodness for companies like Skip Hop and Boon. They are help make owning child safety, eating, and bathing items a bit more stylish.

Wanna know the best part? It actually holds water! We purchased ours from FreshFinds.com. The product arrived quick, and was cheaper than other online stores. I think I picked it up for around $10. You can also pick a Flip-It up at your local Ace Hardware. Ours didn’t carry the brushed/satin nickel. That’s why we went with an online store. You can also find the Flip-It here and here.
All you peeps out there still using a junky old rubber stopper you now have no excuse. Go and pick up a Flip-it. You can thank me later.
I was in no way compensated by PPP for my review of the Flip-It. I just really like the product and thought I would share my experience, pros, and cons.




































































































