Chilly Tuesday

Rode the bike yesterday (15miles) and today (nearly 10 miles) to work and back. Boy, it is chilly in the dark before the dawn!  Low 40s! This is COLD for SoCal!  I even wore the leg warmers!

I've been reading up on those electric showers, the ones with the heating unit on the shower head.  I couldn't see how they would be very safe.  And from what I've been reading, many of them are NOT safe.  Firstly, some are cheaply made.  I saw one manufacturer was recalling over 32,000 units.  I read accounts of shower heads exploding with a shower of sparks.  One fellow thanked his mother for telling him not to pee in the shower, because his shower head exploded just as he stepped out to use the toilet!

Then there is the installation.  I saw pictures of shower heads with the wire connections right out in the open, some taped up, some not!  I heard tales that grounding is non-existent in many places.  Ones was wire into a porcelain light fixture that was hanging from the ceiling right above the shower.  Who thought that one up? Yikes!  I'm betting very few of these installations have a GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) breaker in the circuit!

The shower heads require a pretty heavy amperage, too.  Thirty to forty amps. That is about three times what a 1,000 watt portable heater uses.  So you better not wire it up with standard #12 wire! One of the pictures showed a shower with Romex-type (NMSC, or Non Metallic Sheathed Cable) cable running to it.  I hope it was at least #10!

All these installations used plastic pipe.  I'm thinking I'd want metal pipe that is WELL-grounded.

I think maybe I would just go with one of them solar water heater bags...

Thanks for reading!