Bathing in the Modern Age

At some point in our evolution someone, probably a woman, noticed that her mate was a bit shall we say fragrant. Not his usual mildly tolerable scent, but just plain stinky. This guy needed a bath. So off to the river, stream or nearby pond he would have went to wash away the dried yak blood and his accumulated manly scents. Bathing or more to the point the ritual of bathing has progressed through history, but the apparatus of cleansing has remained basically unchanged, a tub or shower.

We now live in an age where gadgets have become commonplace. The microchip has transformed the mundane into the magnificent. So is it not surprising that the bathroom has been touched by this need to make a better mousetrap. Case in point, a modern master bathroom in a home I inspected not long ago. Notice that the tub is the retro claw foot design, yet that isn't the interesting part of this bathing vessel. The spigot is located directly above in the ceiling. When I turned on the controls, located in the corner, the cascading water hitting the empty tub startled me. It was not what I was expecting.

I don't see any practical reason for water pouring from the ceiling. In fact the buyer was concerned because the water pipes had been run through the attic. The falling water splashes all over the floor, but it is pretty darn cool to see. I think they should have added some effects lighting.

Yet the tub was simply the side show to the piece de resistance; the His and Her shower.

The enclosure was massive by shower standards. You could fit a whole family inside and then some, if that's your thing. The feature that made the shower so interesting was the controls.

Body sprays and rain shower heads are nothing particularly new, but this set were so complex that I could not get the basic shower head to operate. The homeowners were kind enough to realize that some directions would be helpful for a first time user. They had taped a hand drawn diagram and basic operating instructions to the enclosure glass. Being that I could not operate the shower easily or actually not at all, I enlisted the help of the buyer. He came in and gave the shower a go, nada. He then called down to his wife, she came up with their Realtor in tow.

The three of them continued to work on the controls while I went about my inspection of the rest of the bathroom. After about 5 minutes I heard a whoop of success.

Should bathing need to be this complicated? The ancient caveman may have had the right idea because I think George Jetson has convoluted a simple human ritual.

James Quarello
2010 SNEC-ASHI President
NRSB #8SS0022
JRV Home Inspection Services, LLC

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