GRcade

I'm not sure what the most popular type of shower is these days. Mine is electric, but I know there's also Power and Mixer.

The pipe and electrical work in my house is a convoluted mess however. It's antiquated beyond belief, so the simplest of things that you would expect to be present (such as, say, a valve to turn the water off under the tap) aren't present on every tap, so you've got to do it from the street using a key. I originally wanted my taps in the kitchen finally changed to a mixer but it turned out the pipes are right up against the wall and wood placed in front of them (strawberry floating why?!!!!) so they're inaccessible without dismantling the entire sink unit. So that was the end of that for the time being.

Rang up British Gas this morning and was told 'we don't fix showers'. Not even the electrics associated with a shower. Some electrician and plumber you are then!

I've never had an electric shower as far as I know. I've always been a bit curious as to what the additional electric power is there for - is it for heating the water if you don't want to use a boiler? Or is it for upping the water pressure or something? We've got really solid water pressure in our new house so even with just a standard mixer shower the water hits you like a tonne of bricks if you have it turned up full!

This mornings annoyance: radio was being weird on my commute this morning so the only thing I could get tuned in was Radio 1. I hate everything about this station - the music they play is gooseberry fool, the presenters are awful, and they seem to put a really annoying "blown out" style effect on the presenters microphones that is just incredibly annoying. Just set them up properly so we can hear them clearly, it doesn't make you sound cool and edgy it just makes you sound gooseberry fool!!!

Jenuall wrote:I've never had an electric shower as far as I know. I've always been a bit curious as to what the additional electric power is there for - is it for heating the water if you don't want to use a boiler? Or is it for upping the water pressure or something?

The one in my house means that when I push the on button, the water is instantly as hot as you want it, doesn't have to warm up at all. Downside is that it can only get a certain (normally lower) amount of water through the system so you're left with very hot water at a lower pressure. You can get electric showers that have enough "space" (for want of a better word) to allow much more water through at once which gives a more powerful stream (that's bait), but they're obviously more expensive.

Jenuall wrote:I've never had an electric shower as far as I know. I've always been a bit curious as to what the additional electric power is there for - is it for heating the water if you don't want to use a boiler?

Yes exactly this. It only gets hooked up to cold water, there is a heating element in the shower itself so you don't need the boiler on or whatever.

Fair enough, I imagine that works out to be more efficient for flats and things where you don't need that much hot water all that often. I think our hot water is basically set to be always on anyway so I've never had a problem with the shower not being at the right temperature for more than about a second or two anyway.

The alternative of course is to keep the boiler temperature low when you don't need it and then suddenly whack it up mega high to heat it up quicker:

Phoned up 5 companies/people to have a look at my shower (including the manufacturer Mira) and none of them want to deal with an isolation switch. Phone up PlumbingForce and they recommend an electrician. Phone up electricians and they 'don't do showers'.

I dunno, there appears to be a gap in the market: by day he's an electrician, but by night he transforms into a plumber. I need a Pumbtrician.

i had a similar issues - i didnt know if it was a plumbing or electrician job. its so annoying.
if its a plumber theyll normally just offer to fit a new one for £60 all in. if its genuinely the isolator or the hand-pull on/off gone then an electrician should do it.

Phoned HomeServe and as soon as I mentioned the isolation switch they weren’t interested either. Tried a few people on Check A Trade and that was also a dead end (some don’t even pick up the phone). Finally however managed to find someone this evening on Which? Trusted Traders who is going to do it tomorrow. Doesn’t do the shower itself so I hope that isn't bust, but does do electrics.

Never mind University, I think becoming a tradesman (for everything) might end up helping in life far more.

Well I'm kind of a new generation of tradesman who makes customs gooseberry fool for people, so I would agree with that. However I have a bachelors in art, I suppose I just figured out what to do with it (and everything I learnt before going there).

KK wrote:Phoned HomeServe and as soon as I mentioned the isolation switch they weren’t interested either. Tried a few people on Check A Trade and that was also a dead end (some don’t even pick up the phone). Finally however managed to find someone this evening on Which? Trusted Traders who is going to do it tomorrow. Doesn’t do the shower itself so I hope that isn't bust, but does do electrics.

Never mind University, I think becoming a tradesman (for everything) might end up helping in life far more.

Well I know in the US at least they have a massive shortage of tradespeople due to people going to College/University. There are people going to College and putting themselves into a hundred thousand dollars worth of debt then struggling to get a job, whilst people graduating High School and going to do an apprenticeship are earning $40,000/year by their mid-20s and with no student debt to show for it.

The thing with that is there is a cost. It costs businesses to train them up, and there aren't that many opportunities available. The idea there is this huge vacuum of apprenticeship roles waiting to be filled by willing and able individuals is not true. It takes just as many hours to get somebody good at something regardless of whether they go to a college or university or are taught by a professional, and somebody has to pay for that.

For example there is a Santander apprenticeship scheme over here, but the pay is something like £2 per hour because the businesses get paid the difference to participate - they're not actually funding the training, the bank is. I'm not actually sure where the beneficiary is in all that, I suppose the business gets cheap labour and the bank, er, I dunno. This didn't result in a long term hire anyway, the business just exploited it ultimately until they got laid off.

I had a summer intern for literally a single day until she gave up, I spent months preparing work for her and even bought equipment, HSE healthkit and an adjustable desk chair for her. She spent 80% of the time on her phone while I attempted to teach things and explain my experience of different situations and answer her questions. She couldn't operate a simple piece of machinery I use frequently (all day) with zero muscles myself, and while her attention to detail was quite good (when she was asked to actually do something) the whole thing really surprised me how little of a gooseberry fool she gave about something she specifically requested to do.

It was a colossal waste of time and effort and while it didn't cost me much it put me off offering anyone training for anything for the forceable future. She had a good portfolio and most of a furniture design degree and she was still strawberry floating vapid. I think she honestly just wanted to piss about with burly men in workshops (so not me then) and post pictures on her instagram.

Pretty sure she was just farming for tokenistic "experience" for her final year of university requirements and based on that experience I doubt she will work an honest day's graft in her life.

Well he fixed it. Fuse had blown. Not even a 10 minute job. Had the fuses been properly labelled I could have done it myself.

KK wrote:Well he fixed it. Fuse had blown. Not even a 10 minute job. Had the fuses been properly labelled I could have done it myself.

Sounds like your flat isn't upto Building Regs.

A story to cheer Ad7 up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48512697

Moggy wrote:A story to cheer Ad7 up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48512697

I saw that this morning. Utterly gooseberry fool road summed up by a motorway needing a relief road to save it from itself. banana split of a road. They should blast those tunnels out and make it an actual 3 lane motorway rather than a jumped up dual carriageway with long off and on ramps.

Ad7 wrote:

Moggy wrote:A story to cheer Ad7 up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48512697

I saw that this morning. Utterly gooseberry fool road summed up by a motorway needing a relief road to save it from itself. banana split of a road. They should blast those tunnels out and make it an actual 3 lane motorway rather than a jumped up dual carriageway with long off and on ramps.

Ad7 wrote:banana split of a road.

Description of the week.

KK wrote:Phoned up 5 companies/people to have a look at my shower (including the manufacturer Mira) and none of them want to deal with an isolation switch. Phone up PlumbingForce and they recommend an electrician. Phone up electricians and they 'don't do showers'.

I dunno, there appears to be a gap in the market: by day he's an electrician, but by night he transforms into a plumber. I need a Pumbtrician.

You want a bathroom fitter. Probably a firm with tiler, plumber, electrician etc.

Moggy wrote:

Ad7 wrote:

Moggy wrote:A story to cheer Ad7 up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48512697

I saw that this morning. Utterly gooseberry fool road summed up by a motorway needing a relief road to save it from itself. banana split of a road. They should blast those tunnels out and make it an actual 3 lane motorway rather than a jumped up dual carriageway with long off and on ramps.

Great.

It is a strawberry floating joke that stretch of the road - an obvious problem with a very simple solution that would absolutely be in the public interest to implement. So of course they are not going to do a strawberry floating thing.

EDIT: Quote from the Future Generations Commissioner Sophie Howe in that article:

"Hope this marks a shift in policy for Wales and the Welsh Government now quickly bring forward investment in public transport,"

This is not a strawberry floating problem that will be solved by public transport improvement! A lot of traffic needs to travel E<->W every day, with the best will in the world between commuters whose travel distances and destinations make public transport a non-starter and the continually increasing volume of freight which is being moved you are never going to solve that problem with investment in public transport.