Shower Update

Regarding my post on January 13th...The three of us guys who are sharing the apartment behind the church, decided that we could spare $16 each for the privelege of warm showers in our bathroom. We now have a shower water heater in our shower! And wow, it is so worth it. Speaking of showers...

1. The bathrooms here don't have showers, the bathroom IS the shower. The whole bathroom is tiled to about eye level and there is the shower head, on the wall, attached by hose to the water heater, and that is attached by hose to the shower faucet. At first I thought it was weird, but now I think it is the greatest thing! You get to use the whole room as your shower, so you are never cramped for space. if the floor gets dirty, you just spray it down (same with the toilet). The toilet is available for use during your shower, as is the sink (talk about multitasking). Now that I've tried it, it will be restricting, going back to the shower stall.

2. The electrically minded in the crowd may ask, "You made sure that shower water heater was properly grounded, right?" Funny you should ask... um, no. Actually the entire country of Thailand is not properly grounded. I raised this concern with my roommates, inspected the previous heater wiring and the wiring of two other shower heaters. In each case, the ground in the heater was not hooked up (despite numerous warnings inside the box that said "This Unit Must Be Earthed"). Thai wiring doesn't have a ground wire, and the water pipes are plastic. So, when in Thailand, do as the Thais do. I hooked it up ungrounded and so far, so good. BTW, every water heater has safety circuitry ELSD (Electrical Leakage Safety Device -- I think). I think it's equivalent in theory to GFCI. The heater has "Test" and "Reset" buttons just like GFCI. The funny thing is that the test works even if the ground is not hooked up.