In a shower with only one faucet you have to turn it all the way around, increasing the flow to a torrent, before you get warm/hot water. And then when you’re done you end up getting cold water while turning it back off. Unless you manage to jump out of the way somehow.
Also, because of the faster flow of water at the more tolerable higher temperatures, the hot water finishes rapidly, causing the next bather to have to wait for a while to get warm water again.
So how is one supposed to control the flow independent of the temperature?
At Home Depot and other such stores, you can get a shower head with a built-in flow valve. It’ll let you have a full-blast shower down to a mere trickle.
We used them all the time in desert country for water conservation. We got wet, then turned down the flow while lathering.
Each of us, at some time in our lives, turns to someone - a father, a brother, a God - and asks, “Why am I here? What was I meant to be?”
thank you, Rahul. I thought I was the only one who hates those one-handled showers so common in many hotels. I wish I could understand the motivation of the people who designed them.
The suggestion to install a different kind of shower head obviously won’t work for hotel-goers. But it also won’t work for certain people who move into a new home and find one of these one-handled-idiots installed. Changing the shower head is easy, but my wife and I have very different preferences about the pressure of the water, and we can’t keep changing the shower head! The only solution would be to change the one-handle to a two-faucet, and that is a lot harder and more expensive!
Can anyone suggest any advantage of the one-handle showers?
The single handle shower in this house works exactly as you say - however the shower head has a small bar on its face - turn this and you can regulate the flow of the water easily. It is just a question of remembering what setting you like and turning it back to the original setting before you exit.
If you are going on vacation, plan to stay in a hotel, bring a wrench and an inexpensive shower head from your local hardware store. Beats a week of bad showers and you can repack your modifications for your next vacation.
Your SO might find this modification an improvement of the hotel’s, too.
I wouldn’t advise tinkering with the plumbing at a hotel. If the shower head is corroded you could end up breaking a pipe inside the wall. Try explaining that.
The purpose of that style of shower control is safety, if it’s set up properly it is impossible to get scalded. Two handled controls are illegal in new construction in many areas, and probably not allowed in hotels. An adjustable shower head is your best bet.
“I wouldn’t advise tinkering with the plumbing at a hotel. If the shower head is corroded you could end up breaking a pipe inside the wall. Try explaining that.”
—frolix8
Don’t have to explain nuthin. Just tell the mgmt. “My freakin shower broke”. They’ll give you another room. It’s like when Hertz is idiotic enough to rent you a car.
Peace,
mangeorge
I only know two things;
I know what I need to know
And
I know what I want to know
Mangeorge, 2000
“…also, to get longer showers, turn up the heat on your hot water heater.
most come relatively low to save energy.”
Yeah, try asking the lodging people to do that for ya!
We are under phase three water rationing. We can only use a set amount of water even though its been raining for about 7 days straight.
