revolutionary occurence
A few months ago, I posted concerning my shower situation in the apartment and how briefly the water stays warm. I have gotten pretty good at fast showers, and I generally have to resort to that thing that Dad always insisted that Seth and I do when we lived at home: I turn off the water while I lather up. On cold mornings in Dublin, sometimes I didn't want the warm water off, but I wouldn't have any warm water at the end of the shower if I didn't play it that way.
To save on electricity, I have a switch that turns the hot water heater on and off. I have to get up an hour or so before I want to take a shower in order to let the thing warm up (I've experimented with this; longer than an hour does me no good). This is no problem as I am a breakfast-eater and generally a slow starter. On the same panel that controls the power to the hot water heater, I have a switch to choose between hot water for the sink and hot water for the shower. It's labeled like that and everything. Today, I accidentally left the hot water on for the sink for a while before I took a shower. When I got into the shower, I noticed that I didn't have to bump up the heat throughout the shower--it's generally all the way on the hot side by the time I finish every morning. I decided to hang out in there for a while and see how long it would last. Turns out quite a while. Longer than normal shower length for an adult male human. There are still further tests to run, but at the moment, it looks like someone installed the switch backwards and I have actually been using the "sink" setting all this time for my showers. This changes everything and bodes well for any of you thinking of coming to visit.
If I make it like this, good things happen.
My shower control used to look like this (the heat turned all the way up) after 5 minutes in the shower. Shortly thereafter, the water would get cold.
To save on electricity, I have a switch that turns the hot water heater on and off. I have to get up an hour or so before I want to take a shower in order to let the thing warm up (I've experimented with this; longer than an hour does me no good). This is no problem as I am a breakfast-eater and generally a slow starter. On the same panel that controls the power to the hot water heater, I have a switch to choose between hot water for the sink and hot water for the shower. It's labeled like that and everything. Today, I accidentally left the hot water on for the sink for a while before I took a shower. When I got into the shower, I noticed that I didn't have to bump up the heat throughout the shower--it's generally all the way on the hot side by the time I finish every morning. I decided to hang out in there for a while and see how long it would last. Turns out quite a while. Longer than normal shower length for an adult male human. There are still further tests to run, but at the moment, it looks like someone installed the switch backwards and I have actually been using the "sink" setting all this time for my showers. This changes everything and bodes well for any of you thinking of coming to visit.
If I make it like this, good things happen.
My shower control used to look like this (the heat turned all the way up) after 5 minutes in the shower. Shortly thereafter, the water would get cold.
posted by Gabriel | Monday, January 29, 2007
4 Comments:
It's taken me a few minutes to wrap my brain around this. I really want to empathize with what's going on with your plumbing. Honest. It's just not clear from your blog what that might be.
So the controls don't actually control what the water is used for, right? I mean they are labeled to suggest a purpose, but your not locked-into that, right? I think you've proven that by taking a shower for the past five months on what we now believe to have been the sink setting. It just wants to know what you're about to do so it will know how much water it needs to warm up.
Just think how long you would've been able to have washed your hands for the past several months. Don't look back with regret over that now, though.
It also opens a scruples question. Now that we've solved this mystery, do you replace the labels so that the next tenant will benefit from your accidental discovery. Or, do you feel like the experience, albeit inconvenient at times, has forged you into a stronger person. and, if so would you be doing the next tenant a disservice by depriving them of the same opportunity to grow. Gabe, I can't answer these questions for you. It's all part of the process of becoming a man. I can only tell you to follow your heart. The heart knows the answer. Just listen to your heart Gabe.
a follow-up question. A closer look at your water heater switch picture begs the question: Do toggle switches in Ireland have the "off" on top and "on" on the bottom? If so, you have no business in a country like that. That's not how you were raised Gabriel Ford.
I'm a little perplexed about what that switch does myself. My caption on the switch picture is basically what I know about it. My guess is that there are two tanks for hot water. When the settings are "ON" and "SINK" it should be warming up the smaller one, but is actually warming up the larger one. It's not an immediate effect either. It takes some time to get some hot water.
And my light switch and the switches for my electrical sockets have their "OFF" setting at the top too. Disturbing, isn't it?
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