faucetry

[calimac]

This is but one of several cartoons I've seen over the years joking about the complexity of bath faucets. I never imagined our shower faucet would be among them. I turned it on to test it immediately on first inspecting this place as a possible rental.

But two successive plumbers - the generalist and the specialist - looking for a possible leak in the shower drain (turned out there wasn't one, so we're OK) could not figure out how to turn on the shower faucet.

You pull the handle. Twisting it left or right adjusts the temperature. To turn it on, you pull it. Had they never encountered one like that before, or known this was something you try?

Comments

[cmcmck]

Our new one is beautifully simple- LH control is to the rear for the overhead shower and to the front for the hand held.

Just three heat settings on the RH control: back, middle and forward and the middle one is a perfect temperature, so it stays put.

[calimac]

Oh, a perfect middle temperature - how wonderful. The other classic problem with bath faucets is it's either too cold or too hot, and almost impossible to find a position with the proper mixture, let alone keep it there.

[ranunculus]

Our "HMS Spiggot"; the wildly expensive shower unit we put in at Henry St; has a great temperature control and is very simple. A choice of cold to hot lever and another lever to turn the water on. The temperature lever usually stays in the same place.

[andrewducker]

It's baffling to me that adults find shower controls hard. There's only a few degrees of freedom in them. Once you've encountered a couple of each type they should be easy enough to use!