Home Improvement

[rubato]

Now we are in the process of a bathroom remodel. The smallness of the bathroom belies the complexity of the undertaking involving cabinets, toilet, shower, fixtures, glass enclosures, new pocket door, the tile-stone selection process, sink material and fixtures, window, &c.

Now the fact is that we have a friend who is a architect so has drawn up the plans (almost final) for shaping the space and improving the plumbing so you would think we were on the home stretch, but no. The universe of choice in materials and fixtures is vast. Vast. and ever-expanding.

Along the way one does get to see a lot of interesting things. Not necessarily things I want and usually things that don't fit in the space avail. but intriguing just the same.


So I thought I would kick this off and follow with some of the things which showed up.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Ok, this is cool. An LED showerhead which senses the temperature and lights up appropriately. And you can thread it on to an existing shower:



No wires, it runs on a small electrical generator driven by the water flow.

Auto Temperature Detected Light Color Change! The shower head will automatically change colors according to the temperature of the water. So you always know how the water will feel on your skin just by looking at it.
- When water temperature is below 113'F lights glow BLUE.
- When water temperature is between 114'F - 121'F lights glow RED.
- When water temperature is over 122'F lights flash RED.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Aesthetically I LOVE this. Nice use of wood and a beautiful free-form stone tub:



Not practical for our space and a stone tub has a large thermal mass so that the water gets cooled quite a lot. Getting a HOT bath in this tub is going to use a lot of heat and a lot of water. If it were made of a cast material you could embed a heating element in the body of it to offset the thermal mass problem.

Aesthetically 5 stars. Wood is nice in a bath area because it is softer than tile, stone, &c for walls and flooring and feels nice.


yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

No wires, it runs on a small electrical generator driven by the water flow.

Isn't that ingenious.

[rubato]

Some beautiful wooden tubs though, and the Japanese used wooden tubs for 1,000 years and they are the cleanest people on earth.










But I digress, we aren't putting a tub in this bathroom just a shower. The next remodel with get the new tub.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

No wires, it runs on a small electrical generator driven by the water flow.

Isn't that ingenious.

And you can buy one and thread it into your existing shower pipe in minutes!

support the sciences, buy cool stuff.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

One thing we are doing is to have the bathroom floor flow directing into the shower with an edge drain to keep the water in the right place. Leaning towards some sort of stone floor and shower stall lining.




yrs,
rubato

[dales]

Environmentally sound and uses NO water

[oldr_n_wsr]

Beautiful tubs.

And I like the idea of a drain between the shower and the outside. It looks good too. Nice flow from out to in the shower.

Environmentally sound and uses NO water

And cold in the winter.

[Crackpot]

And not true on either count. Especially if not maintained.

[kristina]

Those wooden tubs are lovely...

Re: the LED showerhead...it looks as if it's not exactly low-flow (I know, looks can be deceiving); how is it for conserving water? I love the idea of the straight overhead shower, after too many years of having to do knee bends to get my hair wet in tiny apartment showers.

[rubato]

An idea from the plumbing wares store guy: a bidet. In our case it would have to be built into the toilet. But according to him "I had no idea what animals we were until I used one of these". Sounds comfy and hygenic too; having a clean asshole is an important part of my sense of well-being.





Nothing is 100% until we sign the checks but this sounds good.



yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

The modern environmentalist uses composting toilets:

http://www.redding.com/news/wire-news/c ... nversation

SAN JOSE, California — The most radical “green” features of the City of San Jose’s new Environmental Innovation Center are concealed behind two doors marked “Women” and “Men.”

There, plopped between the other conventional stalls, are two “composting toilets,” the first ever installed in a California office building.

“You assume you get an outhouse on a trail,” said Nora Cibrian, an environmental services specialist with the city. “But you just don’t think you can do it indoors too.”

These two toilets resemble every other commode, but at a total cost of approximately $20,000, they aren’t your great-grandmother’s latrines. They skip the sewage system entirely, funneling waste into a tank in the basement the size of a commercial trash bin.

Unlike an old-fashioned outhouse, where the waste goes straight into a hole in the ground, the composting toilets use the magic of chemistry to convert it to fertilizer. Just as in a backyard compost pile full of leaves and fruit rinds, the nutrient-rich waste mixes with carbon from wood shavings in the tank. Hungry bacteria then break down the material into tiny pieces, generating heat and carbon dioxide. A fan circulates air, reducing odor and ensuring the bacteria have plenty of oxygen. It takes some additional work to complete the yearlong composting process. You have to toss in some earthworms, sift occasionally, and add about a gallon of water per day.

When it’s all done, the city will have access to mature compost, according to toilet manufacturer Don Mills, a sales director for Clivus Multrum, a Massachusetts company founded in the 1970s by environmentalist Rockefeller scion, Abby Rockefeller.

“It’s not a highly complex device,” Mills said. “It’s a consciousness-raiser as well as an actual technology.”

The design team saw the toilets as a natural fit for the city’s new Environmental Innovation Center, a $31-million facility that includes a variety of Earth-friendly innovations, said city spokeswoman Cheryl Wessling. The toilets use just ounces of water per flush — just enough to moisten a biodegradable foam solution that coats the tanks before and after each use, and much less than the one to five gallons guzzled by average toilets.

“This is definitely a learning process,” Cibrian said. “We’ll see what works and what doesn’t work and whether it can be applied elsewhere.”

The Bay Area is home to two other composting toilet installations, both outdoors. One is at the Presidio’s El Polin Spring in San Francisco and the other at Crystal Springs Golf Course in Burlingame.

The Presidio Trust installed the composting toilets near the spring in 2011 to preserve a unique watershed with a rich archeological history, said Allison Stone, the organization’s director of trails and philanthropy. She admitted they were a bit nervous at first, but are now quite happy with their off-the-grid choice.

“It’s been a great experience,” Stone said. “We have not had any major problems.”

But despite the water-saving benefits, the composting toilets have one big drawback apart from the steep upfront cost that has limited their use: Governments still see the resulting compost as sewage, sharply limiting disposal options.

Though San Jose expects to approve permits soon for the unconventional toilets at the Environmental Innovation Center, city officials haven’t decided how they will dispose of the resulting compost. Wessling said it might be used on-site to fertilize the landscaping, or the city could have Clivus haul it away for $350 a month.

The Innovation Center’s new tenants are expected to pay the maintenance costs. They include: ReStore, Habitat for Humanity’s building materials store and donation center; a household hazardous waste drop-off facility; and Prospect Silicon Valley, which will run a program to help develop clean technology.

The Presidio Trust hired a contractor to regularly sift and care for the toilets and that contractor removed the waste, Stone said.

Vermont Law School installed composting toilets indoors in 1998 and gets numerous requests to see them, said Lori Campbell, the school’s facilities manager.

“People are fascinated,” she said.

But the compost disposal poses a big drawback that advocates face coast to coast.

“It is presently the case in nearly every state that you must regard this material as sewage,” Mills said.

Vermont state law still precludes the school from using the compost on its grounds, Campbell said, calling the restriction “unfortunate.”

“It’s beautiful compost,” she said. “It’s so rich, it’s unbelievable.”

Peter Scott, an emeritus professor of physics at UC Santa Cruz and California’s foremost expert on the commodes, believes the steep upfront cost chiefly dissuades many potential buyers. He first learned about the toilets while visiting the Vermont Law School in the early 2000s with his wife, Celia, a former Santa Cruz mayor, and he has been advocating their use ever since.

“It’s an interesting problem and an interesting puzzle as to why there aren’t more of them,” Scott said. “It seems like we have a lot of opportunities.”

[rubato]

Those wooden tubs are lovely...

Re: the LED showerhead...it looks as if it's not exactly low-flow (I know, looks can be deceiving); how is it for conserving water? I love the idea of the straight overhead shower, after too many years of having to do knee bends to get my hair wet in tiny apartment showers.

The overhead ones are low-pressure. You get a nice soaking effect with not so much water.

I know what you mean about the knee-bends! Who ever thought putting shower heads that low made sense? Sheesh.


yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

Love the wooden tubs, although I'm in the market for a vintage claw foot soaking tub, myself.

[rubato]

The modern environmentalist uses composting toilets:

http://www.redding.com/news/wire-news/c ... nversation

Our good friend (and former dentist, now retired) has a composting toilet. That choice is partly driven by the fact that he is on a septic system.


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

Ok, this is cool. An LED showerhead which senses the temperature and lights up appropriately. And you can thread it on to an existing shower:



yrs,
rubato

Excessive affluence is never pretty.

[rubato]

Oh wow, the first shit-bomb of the thread and its from you. What a non-surprise.

yrs,
rubato

[kristina]

Love the wooden tubs, although I'm in the market for a vintage claw foot soaking tub, myself.

I had one, two rentals ago. I had to fill it very slowly, because if I didn't, it would empty the hot water heater before it was full! One of the few things I miss about that house.

[Gob]

Oh wow, the first shit-bomb of the thread and its from you. What a non-surprise.

yrs,
rubato

No dear Aspergers boy, a "shit bomb" would be an unwarranted or untrue observation.

Like someone posting "excessive affluence is never pretty" about a group of women protesting about a ban on breast feeding.

Claiming that someone boasting about wasting money on pretty shower lights shows "excessive affluence is never pretty," is smack bang on subject.