In which Our hero explores options.
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Today, Partner and I visited an appliance showroom. Here’s what we learned:
- Shower heads come with flow rate limiters. The national legal maximum is 2.5 gallons per minute. You can remove your flow rate limiter, as the salesman at the showroom once did. His shower subsequently shot water with such force that it knocked the shower door clean off and flooded his bathroom.
- If you buy a thermostatic shower handle, you can have infinite separate shower heads all pointing at you. The shower heads are each limited at 2.5 gallons per minute. The thermostatic valve caps out at 14 gallons per minute. So even with three shower heads you won’t lose water pressure! All you have to do is ensure you’re shipping the showerhead to a state that does not have more restrictive requirements (California and New York both cap showerheads at 1.8 gallons per minute)
- Some faucets cost $150. Some cost $800. Some cost $2400. They all dispense water. The $800 vs $2400 is cosmetic. The $150 vs $800 can be functional.
- The cheapest toilets and the expensive toilets both will ultimately contain sewage. The cheapest toilets don’t have glazed piping, so over time the sewage will accumulate in the pipe. The mid-range vs expensive toilets are functionally equivalent, just with different aesthetics and different ease of cleaning the part that doesn’t touch sewage.
- No one makes a bidet seat in black.
- Everyone likes a toto toilet, especially if you’re getting one with a bidet. I’m not convinced. I enjoy a vigorous stream when shooting water around my anus. The toto toilets I have used are disappointing in this context.
- Linear drains (long, thin rectangular ones) in New York City are much more expensive than normal, square drains since they must legally be made of more expensive materials.
- Steam showers cost $5k, minimum.
- Neither Partner nor I like rain head showers. Our dislike, according to the showroom attendant, is a common perspective.
- I will likely be able to realize my dream of three showerheads all at once. Bully for me!
- One model of toilet costs just over $26,000. It is not made of gold. I did get to sit on it.
Julian Wise 