Monday 23 July 2012

Not again!

Chris and I had a similar problem another time when he had come over with me to do some job or other: we had no hot water at all in the shower room, neither in the shower itself nor in the hand basin. Once again, the water pressure had fallen too low, and once again we had to call in the plumber as neither Chris nor I could work out how to increase the pressure. Monsieur David quickly increased the pressure, and showed us how to do it. But he took no prisoners while speaking and I just could not persuade him to slow down enough for me to understand him. Anyway, we had hot water in the hand basin.

It was not until after Monsieur David had left that we realised that, despite having hot water in the basin, we had none in the shower. It eventually occurred to us to remove the shower head, after which the hose produced piping hot water. The shower head was obviously the cause of the problem. We deduced that the holes had become partly blocked, thereby reducing the flow of water to below that needed to operate the gas heater in the boiler.

A trip to our favourite DIY store meant that a new shower head was easily obtained. I bought a rather flash one that could be adjusted to provide a gentle spray, or a body-tingling hard jet, or a combination of the two. There were cheaper ones on the shelf, but what the heck, I thought. It was a pity that we had to cut up the packaging, because it meant that I was unable to return the new shower head when we discovered that this one too reduced the flow of water to an unacceptable low.

It took the cheapest shower head on sale at the local supermarket to do the trick.

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Not a river picture today but a lake.  This is the lake at Pouancé, the nearest town to our village.  This stretch is the swimming beach where there is a lifeguard in the summer months.



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