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Shower Sprinkler

For rinsing off the walls
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(+5)
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Back when I was younger, showers were a cheap electrical afterthought mounted somewhere above a bath. They weren't very good at being showers, especially in winter, but at least they had a head on the end of a hose that could be moved around to spray the shower walls down when cleaning.

Nowadays, all the showers I encounter are more deliberate built-in systems attached to pleasingly robust heat sources. The downside is that after spraying down the walls with your shower cleaner of choice, giving it a bit of a scrub and leaving it for the recommended 15-238.2 minutes, there's no easy way of rinsing off the walls anymore. Sure you can get in there with wet cloths, but you face the choice of bringing dirt into a freshly cleaned bath with shoes, or dissolving your feet in shower cleaner. So a solution, or two, is needed.

The first, is a simple device that clips onto the underside of the shower head and with a rotating propeller-type arrangement, turns the shower into an inverted garden sprinkler, splashing fresh clean water to all corners of the enclosure.

A further improvement on this would include a reservoir above the shower head that could be filled with shower cleaner (Alkaline w/bleach for mold/slime, acid with EDTA for calcium/magnesium deposits, use in that order, a little biological laundry detergent is good at digesting hair in the drain*). Turn on, sprinkler sprays down the walls with water + trickle of concentrated cleaner. Wait, turn back on, cleaner is exhausted and rinsing begins.

*unless it's covered in silicones from conditioner. You're on you're own there.

bs0u0155, Feb 18 2021

The shower configuration in question https://www.homedep...Lw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
[bs0u0155, Feb 18 2021]

Highly recommended. https://www.amazon....-610949888556&psc=1
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 19 2021]

(?) Machine gun powered consumer electronics [pocmloc, Feb 20 2021]

Double the Goodness https://www.reddit....pp&utm_source=share
[AusCan531, Feb 20 2021]


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Annotation:







       Sheer geniosity. It might even work. Have a [+].
whatrock, Feb 18 2021
  

       Only put the cleaner at the bottom?
pocmloc, Feb 18 2021
  

       Yeah, maybe Mr. Baked, but they wouldn't be as esoteric or as cool as a garden hose like sprayer invented by a halfbaker.
blissmiss, Feb 18 2021
  

       Umm, "electrical" afterthought? Plumbing afterthought, shirley?
But a good idea, too.
neutrinos_shadow, Feb 18 2021
  

       In the UK, it's quite common to have a fixed head main shower and a flexible pipe hand held shower with a simple diverter. American plumbing is quite primitive, to match their electrics. (note mess Texas is currently in because of that)
xenzag, Feb 18 2021
  

       That's a bit unfair, [xen].   

       My understanding is that Texas' current difficulties arise from a combination of factors:   

       1. Very unexpected weather
2. Building houses without insulation (which, in more normal conditions, would also help with A/C loads)
3. Rugged independence, so that their transmission network cannot tap into other states' resources for help
4. Embarking on a transition to renewables without enough storage and/or "peaker" capacity. (There's an inverse correlation between the amount of storage and peaker capacity you need and the geographical distribution of the renewable assets you can draw on - see #3).
  

       None of these things indicates primitive electrics as such.
pertinax, Feb 18 2021
  

       //Only put the cleaner at the bottom?//   

       I wanted a way to meter it in slowly, dripping through a narrow orifice seemed the way to go for simplicity.   

       //Handheld showerhead/hose attachments are a pretty cheap retrofit to just about any "fixed" showerhead.//   

       Not possible if the shower is built into the wall, however.   

       //Umm, "electrical" afterthought? Plumbing afterthought, shirley?//   

       Well, they're an electrical plumbing afterthought. They're quite an effective torture device also, they essentially have a fixed output heating coil, say 11kW, and the temperature regulation is achieved by restricting the flow, so in winter you get colder input and the compensation is achieved by providing a miserable trickle. Then, someone turns on a tap. The pressure drops and the water in the heating coil starts to boil. The manufacturers were correctly cautious about letting superheated water flow out of their product onto an unsuspecting human, so, it cuts the heater immediately. The net result being that the shower turns ice cold immediately.   

       //n the UK, it's quite common to have a fixed head main shower and a flexible pipe hand held shower with a simple diverter.// That is probably the best arrangement.   

       //American plumbing is quite primitive//   

       You know, they don't have draining boards. It's barbaric.   

       //to match their electrics.//   

       This is something of a mixed blessing. You can get away with almost anything as satisfactory wiring, that scene where Mr Bean rams bare wires into a plug and gives it a twist, is practically code here. But because their electrics are so anaemic, there's hidden benefits, cheap electric showers have never been a thing & electric hand dryers in public bathrooms are rare.   

       As a downside, it takes far too long to boil a kettle. I wonder, if I got a 220V outlet installed I could use a 3kW UK kettle... it's just a resistive heating element, so shouldn't be sensitive to the switch from single phase to two phase, but it's not the sort of thing you want to amateurishly dabble in.
bs0u0155, Feb 18 2021
  

       //1. Very unexpected weather// Fair enough   

       //2. Building houses without insulation (which, in more normal conditions, would also help with A/C loads).//   

       Insulation is communist, and, so expensive for a 66,574 sq ft starter home it would cut into the pool budget.   

       //3. Rugged independence, so that their transmission network cannot tap into other states' resources for help//   

       This is dumb, you can isolate the grid and have DC interconnects like UK-France and those in Scandinavia. You get to use the interconnect to average out peaks and troughs in demand, even better the western neighbor states are in a different time zone. Plus you can sell your excess.   

       //4. Embarking on a transition to renewables without enough storage and/or "peaker" capacity. //   

       Texans store plenty of energy, in a distributed chemical form, protected in individual brass casings. Someone just needs to invent a generator that runs on thirty-aught-six.
bs0u0155, Feb 18 2021
  

       //Can’t even picture what you’re describing.//   

       Like this <link>
bs0u0155, Feb 18 2021
  

       Well, it would be weird looking to attach anything to the end of the pipe. So much so as to cause a domestic disturbance if attempted, and therefore impossible.
bs0u0155, Feb 19 2021
  

       We have been upgrading every shower here, (for exactly the reasons you mention), to hand-held sprayers which mount for hands free showering. [link]   

       They attach easily to your existing shower spout and don't look bad at all. About five minutes or so to swap one out.   

       //Someone just needs to invent a generator that runs on thirty- aught-six.//   

       I'm pretty sure that has been proposed before on this site.   

       If the propellant charge in one cartridge yields about one kilojoule, then firing one round per second gives you a theoretical maximum of one kilowatt. So, given a well- tuned generator of the type proposed, a properly second- amended Texan might be able to run a bar heater for half an hour. Maybe. A lot less than one night, in any case.
pertinax, Feb 20 2021
  

       Ah, you need the 30mm model.
bs0u0155, Feb 20 2021
  

       //I'm pretty sure that has been proposed before on this site.// et viola!
pocmloc, Feb 20 2021
  

       Thank you, [poc].
pertinax, Feb 20 2021
  

       Someone has an idea that's twice as good. [link]
AusCan531, Feb 20 2021
  

       ^But can they cash that pressure cheque?
wjt, Feb 23 2021
  


 

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