A good shower was one of the must-haves about our new bathroom.
The bathroom had room for a stand-alone shower but no bath, so we looked at a variety of shower enclosures, and we were hoping to do something to improve the hot water system. This proved to be slightly tricky, but we came up with a good solution finally.
First to the enclosure – having previously had a rather unpleasant wooden cabinet lined with formica-covered MDF, the prospect of a nice, spacious, clean, light shower cubicle was certainly appealing. And this is what we got. Glass enclosed, with handy moulded shelves and ladies’ footrest for shaving, it’s a pleasure to be in. No danger from moulds as yet unknown to medical science breeding in the corners, no paint flakes when it’s cleaned, and no piddly showery dribble from the shower head.
To keep it looking nice, we make the effort to squeegee it off with one of those rubber window scraper things after every shower, and we wipe down the chrome (there’s not a lot of it). We’re careful not to use abrasive chemicals when cleaning, and we clean regularly, though not obsessively (once every month or two). It’s not as onerous or life threatening as cleaning the old shower.
One thing we were adamant about was improving the water flow. We looked at electric showers, but decided to go the whole hog and instantly heat all our hot water with a gas hot water system. The savings made by not having a cylinder sitting around full of hot water will pay for the cost of the installation in a year or two. The principle is basically the same as for an electric shower, but heats all your hot water. If you do not have access to gas, electricity can be used for heating as well.
The trickiest element was the change from our piddly, dribbly low pressure hot water system to full mains pressure. Initially, the water pressure nearly blew us out of the shower, but luckily this was fixed by installation of a low flow shower head. The shower itself has two pressure settings, so if we do want a massage, we can use the higher setting, but normally I use the low setting.
Tags: electric showers, instant water heating system, low flow shower head, shower enclosures