Dinner was almost ready and so I went to tell Simon, but as I walked past the bathroom I heard something strange. Almost as if someone was having a shower, but not that loud. As I opened the door I saw water spraying out from the electric shower unit.
I think that some of you are probably scratching your head now because you’ve never heard of an electric shower. It’s a fancy gadget that I’ve only seen here in Britain but I’m sure it exists elsewhere. It’s a power unit in the shower that heats the water on demand. There are usually two gages, one for the temperature and one for the pressure. And the water comes on when you adjust the pressure gauge. I’ve also seen ones with a power button.
Back to the crisis at hand, water was quirting out all around the power unit! And by the size of the puddle on the floor it had been happening for a while, though the entire floor was not covered. The bath mat was soaking up quite a bit of it.
Wayne fetched the tool box and I grabbed some towels. The stopcock was right next to the tub so after removing the skirting board that was boxing it in, the water was turned off. You might be scratching your head again or reaching for google if you’ve not heard the word stopcock before. It’s certainly a word that I’ve only encountered here. We didn’t know exactly what water had been stopped. Turns out it was the cold water in this bathroom and upstairs also. So all the toilets were disabled.
Before I go any further I want to assure you that no one gets electrocuted in this story. You see because one of the first things Wayne did when I sounded the alarm was to turn off the shower switch. Does your bathroom have one? Ours is in the hallway outside the bathroom just above the door. We keep it on all the time. But it’s not uncommon for the switch be inside the bathroom. It’s one more thing to remember just before stepping into the shower. Without the power switched on, it’s cold showers only.
We don’t know the history of electric showers and their switches. But they aren’t the only quirky thing about ‘toilets’ as bathrooms are referred to in this land. There are no light switches. Only pull cords. And there are no power outlets. Why is a ‘dressing table’ a common piece of furniture in bedrooms? Because you can’t blow dry your hair in the bathroom. Oh there might be a bespoke ‘razor plug’ for the men to shave with. And yes electric toothbrushes usually have the special plug that fits in the razor outlet.
So we got the water turned off but it was still spurting out all over the place. Wayne went upstairs and turned on the water in another bathroom. This seemed to drain the system and the water stopped spraying in ‘the pink bathroom’ (so called to distinguish it from the green toilet upstairs.)
With the electrics off and the water off, Wayne managed to take the thing apart and see that one of the fittings was broke. I was back fixing dinner by this time, so I didn’t actually see how he did it but it now looks totally dismantled.
We are blessed to have a have a very good friend who is a plumber. Within an hour he arrived to cap off the pipe to the shower so that we could turn the water back on and restore toilet usage to the household. He’s going to look for a replacement part and hopefully save us the cost of complete replacement.
So it’s baths for Simon from now on. He’s staying in the guest room and using the downstairs loo. Yes, that’s another word the Brits use for toilet. I’ve not really incorporated it into my vocabulary yet. It always leaves me a bit puzzled at first when I hear it used.
There are no deep spiritual lessons here. Know where your stopcock is and make friends with a plumber.
26 January 2021