January 19, 2016
After the addition of our new, wonderful, amazing, incredible, fabulous hot water system (post here), we made another incremental improvement. We added a valve to send the cold water left in the pipes back to the water tank, to make way for the luxurious hot water without wasting a drop (fresh water’s precious on Legacy!).
It’s the valve near the bottom of the picture. It takes hot water from just below the shower faucet and has a hose that runs back to our main fresh water tank. You can feel the valve get warm after just 10 or 15 seconds. Then turn off the valve, and the shower’s ready.
I’ve always wanted to do this. Normally, we start with showering our legs or feet – areas of the body that don’t convulse or go into shock when hit with cold water. Now, even those parts don’t have to suffer.
On a related subject, that garden sprayer in the picture is our shower head. We had the typical one that doubled as a sink faucet, but some fool decided that they couldn’t be allowed to shut the water off completely else the badly made rubber hose would explode. This constant dribble of water isn’t very good for those of us trying to conserve water.
Enter the garden sprayer. It has seven selectable spray patterns and does shut off completely while you shampoo. We use the “mist” patter as it gives a forcefull rince while using very little water. When we’re in a marina with lots of fresh water nearby, we use the “shower” pattern for a very satisfying shower experience. The “jet” is handy for cleaning. We really, really like this even though it might not look all that classy. (Our friend called it our redneck shower head.) I’d even do this if and when we return to land life. -Rich
