The Money Pit

Shower In Use, Finally

After a month or so of me having Karen's second-hand bath water every night we finally got the shower back in use last week and I can stop worrying about how much hot water we're using each day.

The shower we went for has enclosed controls and a fixed 8" head sticking out of the wall above, which makes it a bit like standing in a monsoon. Here the controls panel:

Couldn't be simpler could it. It's not even as complicated as it might look. You turn it one way for on and the other for off. The further you turn it in the on direction the warmer it gets. Unscrew for hot. Screw for off.

There's a reason I wanted a simple shower control and that stems from using overly-complicated showers when visiting other people's houses. You know the ones? It's the normally the electric shower variety that have not only an on/off button and temperature control but also a hi/lo control. The idea of it all makes sense but the practice is never so simple. Half the time in somebody elses shower is normally spent trying to get less than a trickle at anything other than freezing or scaulding.

You can always bet the shower's owner knows exactly which combination of settings gets the best results and could probably show you how to achieve this. However, I'd like not to have to show people how to use the shower. A shower shouldn't need a demo and I'm happy ours doesn't.

The control/valve and shower head are both from Victoria Plumb.

Tap as Switch

Remember me talking about flow switches and extractor fans recently?

Well, (insert drum roll here) please allow my faithful assistant to demonstrate the use of the hot water tap as an electrical switch (no way I was going to test it mysefl ;o *)

Not an ideal demonstration as having the sink tap turn on a fan and shower light is fairly pointless. In use the fan/light will come on when you turn the shower on (unless having a cold one for some reason) or run a bath and will continue running for ten minutes or so. As a side effect it also comes on when you wash your hands in the sink. To get round this will mean more pipework and I'm yet to decide if I can be bothered. It might be nice to have the extractor fan come on if you're washing your hands after dropping the kids off at the pool. Either way I can't help thinking it's fairly impressive having this interaction between plumbing and electrics.

Anyway, in case some of you want to mimic this setup, here's how. You need a shower extractor fan (I went for the Vent Axia Luminair T (for timer)) and a flow switch (I got the 615 model off this page).

With the flow switch plumbed in to the hot water supply run the cable up to the loft space, where you have the extractor fan installed and a spare wire from the lighting cicuit available. It's now a simple case of connecting the mains, the switch and the fan together. I say simple, but in fact it took me ages to work this out in my head and a phone call to the switch manufacturer. As I expected, it is quite simple, but takes some figuring out. The easiest way to do this is to think of the flow switch as a normal wall light switch. Although the flow switch has three wires - a common and two "neutrals" labbeled N.O and N.C for "normally open/closed". In the diagram below you can see I've connected the open neatral to the live connector on the fan (marked Ls for live from switch).

It's a bit messy as I just wanted to get it up and running to test it actually worked. Hopefully it's clear enough to see how it works though. Any questions let me know.

* This is, of course, a joke. I'd never let my pregnant wife test this without having done so mysefl beforehand. What kind of man do you take me for!?

Bathroom First Fit Complete

After what feels like weeks of working every waking hour on the bathroom it's now at the point where I can leave it alone for a couple of days and catch up on life.

The trouble with the bathroom as a project is that you can't waste any time in getting it finished. It needs a quick turnaround. Especicially when you live with two girls. For a while the only toilet in the house was the one downstairs, which has no door and is basically in the hallway. Not ideal. There was also a period where we were having sponge baths stood at the kitchen sink, having to get other people to rinse our hair with measuring jugs.

This is all over now and we can toilet, wash and scrub teeth in the bathroom, which now looks like this (image on right is as it was when we first viewed the house):

It's far from finished but it now functions as a bathroom and I can relax for a while. I consider this the "first fit" where I get things in place and eliminate leaks and problems. I now have a lot of "boxing in" to do and the shower to fit.

The room itself looks pretty much the same as before - in that everything's in the same place. We made several improvements though, such as removing the false sealing and all the plastic cladding around the window. The door has moved out in to the corridor to make more space as well as the partition wall moving 6". All in all I think it makes a much bigger-feeling room.

The room has been dragged from the 80s (the bath was stamped May 1986 on the underneath!) in to the noughties. The feel is very much retro Victorian and is very much "now". Whether this look will date any time soon I don't know. Let's hope not.

There are more photos here. One of the photos is of Karen (legs in pop socks) trying the bath on for size in InSitu. This was almost a year to the day ago. Since then we've been buying all the bits needed for the project and storing them about the house. The idea being to spread the cost and soften the blow. Now we've got all the expensive part out of the way I've been wondering what the total cost was, which I'll try and work out roughly now:

• Bath and sink : £1100
• Taps: £200
• Toilet: £750
• Tiled floor: £120
• Plasterer: £400
• Shower (including basin and enclosure): £500
• Lights: £160
• Fixtures and fitting: £400
• Sundries: £500
• Total: £4100

Not cheap by any means, but far less than we could have spent on achieving the same result. As ever our approach has not been to cut any corners but to source decent quality stuff at a good price. It's amazing how much cheaper things become when you shop round and know where to look.