Nightmarishly complicated shower in Japan
LinkIt was an imposing metal unit, and its operation required the use of five different cranks and knobs. That evening my girlfriend provided the necessary explanation:
“Turn this knob to start the gas. Then turn that knob to “high”, and then push and turn this knob, and hold it down. While holding it down, turn this crank. [*click, click, click*] Okay, look in the little window. Can you see the blue flame?”
I looked in the window: “No.”
“You need to get the angle right. Look again.”
I scrutinized the inside of the metal box from every possible angle, but still didn’t see it. Wait. There’s something, but it looks more like a reflection from somewhere, or a dying ghost. “You mean this little thing?”
“Yes, that’s it. Now turn this knob to here. Okay, if the water gets too hot or cold, adjust that knob over there. NEVER turn it past this point, or you’ll get burned. Enjoy your shower.”
So I took my first shower in my new home. The funny thing was, with five different knobs, there was still no way to adjust the water pressure. It was either barely on, or off.
During the course of my shower, occasionally an arm, thin and yellow as an egg noodle, would squeeze through the crack in the door, check the water temperature, adjust the knobs accordingly, and then slip back out.
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My immediate question was: how old is this thing? Given that Japan is the home of the fuzzily intelligent rice cooker, I'd suspect that this thing dates back quite a ways. I would associate this sort of tech with former Warsaw Pact countries.
So at the end a Simpsons character reached into his shower?
@HALLOWEEN JACK
Yeah, you'd think so right?
One of the biggest surprises for me, also visiting my then-girlfriend living in Japan, was that many (most?) dwellings don't have central hot water like we have here. We had something like 30 Mb/s internet, but no hot running water. Go figure.
I'm surprised that the author even had a shower! We had a tub that you filled with cold water, and then through a series of knobs and dials turned on a gas powered heater / pump that circulated and warmed the water. You basically had to plan about 20 - 30 minutes ahead of taking a bath. I have to admit though, it was extremely relaxing.
In the kitchen we had a box mounted on the wall that gave hot water on demand. You had to push a button to light the heater, and then hot water started coming out of a little hose. There was a dial that controlled the temperature of the water. The nice thing was, it had a setting that produced water so hot you could use it for tea -- no boiling required. Just be mindful washing dishes!
As planingan describes, strictly speaking that's the water heater, not the shower. Presumably you could keep the heater on for a while, or at least for a few hours will the whole family showers, so that procedure is more of a cold-boot than actual shower operation.
One other thing about Japan is that public baths are very popular, and a lot of people use them not just to relax but for their daily shower/bathing, shaving, and other grooming needs.
My wife is Japanese and the first time I visited the in-laws I was happily surprised by the techno wonder that was the toilet seat and completely flummoxed by how to operate the shower. Definitely not as "steampunk" as the one in this article, my in-laws shower resembles more of an mid-80's hand held electronic football game with weird pressure sensitive buttons and little red and blue LED indicator lights that moved up and down and are absolutely meaningless. You spend your time expressing either "Ow..Ow..too hot! Too Hot!" to "Whoa! Whoa! Too cold! Too freaking cold!". Crazy, eh?
When I was in Brazil, I was intrigued by the interesting shower heads. They seem to be electric and head the water in the head, which rains down on you, rather than spraying you. The only thing you control is the water turning on -- there is a three position switch on the shower head which I think could make the water hotter or colder, but which I never felt the need to use.
While I was there, a guy was speaking about travelling to the US and how maddening it was that every hotel shower seems to operate differently. Nothing as bad as this article, but I could sympathize, as I've sometimes spent 20 or 30 minutes trying to figure out how to turn a shower on or to effectively regulate the temperature.
"During the course of my shower, occasionally an arm, thin and yellow as an egg noodle, would squeeze through the crack in the door, check the water temperature, adjust the knobs accordingly, and then slip back out."
AIEEEEEEE!
I shat bricks.
@keneke
seriously.
what is that supposed to mean?
@2, 7, and maybe 8:
If you read the blog post, he explains that the arm is his Japanese girlfriend's.
The thing is, I really like heating my water on demand. What's the point of having a big device full of water whose size is just a guess at how much I'll need. Having water heat on demand means always enough for the bath, and no wasted heating. Brilliant!
What's worse: learning to turn a few knobs, or having to suffer through a cold shower? (Or wasting a lot of resources when every house in the country has a batch of standing hot water?)
He taught English in Japan and has a Japanese girlfriend and blogs about how the culture is just so gosh darn weird. How novel. It should be a new internet drinking game where every time you come across an article like this, you have to take drink a shot.
on my last day in japan, and at the only hotel i stayed at without communal baths, only showers, and those, strangely enough, just by the lobby, i had the very interesting experience of taking a shower in an earthquake. what do you do, right? do you ride it out, possibly die? or do you run naked into the street and embarrass the hell out of yourself? the thought popped into my mind to pretend it was some kind of ride, so i put my arms over my head, went 'wooo!', and then it was over.
Yeah, this is an old water heater.
Here's the thing:
Japan, until remarkably recently, was mostly a public-bathing culture. Houses didn't have bathing apparatuses (apparati?) because you went down to the local sentou to bathe there every few days.
In fact, there wasn't hot running water anywhere but the kitchen, and that is the box another poster mentioned--a small, heat-on-demand water heater for doing dishes, etc. A lot of older houses and apartments still have these.
As Japan became more wealthy (remember that as recently as 1950 most of it was a bombed-out shell), people started doing things like adding baths on to their houses (this is why old houses sometimes have you walk OUTSIDE to get to the bathroom). Since there wasn't central hot water, they just put another heat-on-demand water heater there for the shower, and/or a heating-oil-heated reservoir for the tub.
Nowadays, of course, there is centralized water heating, although it is still heat-on-demand, which, by the way, is awesome. I think, however, that even some newer houses have the heating reservoir for the tub.
In the case of my place, the water heater is outside in the utility cabinet, and it's controlled by a console in the kitchen and a sub-console in the shower/bath room (It's actually a room in Japan -- a room you can get wet! Wonderful!). You can set the base temperature of the water for the tap, have the tub auto-fill to a certain volume and temperature and tell you when it's ready, and have a "shower" temperature set as well that is set and activated from the console in the shower.
My building is about 10 years old, I think.
If I'm ever building a house, here or elsewhere, I really want heat-on-demand. You get exactly the temperature you want out of the tap, and you never run out of hot water, and you're not using any energy when you're not using water. They are awesome.
@1 who said
I'd suspect that this thing dates back quite a ways. I would associate this sort of tech with former Warsaw Pact countries.
When I first arrived in the back end of nowhere Japan, I was surprised at how yes, so many things did look ike something out of COMECON central casting--the housing blocks especially. In my area we had the three story, five story, or seven story models--all the same, all over. They hand big letters or number on the ends of the buildings to distinguish them.
Living in one of these public housing projects, I had the same intimidating shower/bath heater as in this post. Someone showed me how to start it once, then warned me of gassing yourself if the flame goes out, or possible explosions.
I never did gas myself or explode and came to love the heater. I could use it to recirculate the water in bath to keep it piping hot. The cranking made an enormous racket which I came to associate with a nice warm bath, so what others consider obnoxious, makes me feel comfortable.
Even moving top the big city years later, I had the same type unit again. In Tokyo now, I have central hot water, but you still see plenty of these old style units around.
Almost every Chilean house has one of those water heaters, but with a modern look. Just three knobs (gas, water, and heat level). Some are fully automatic. I known that sound silly, but we only heat water when we need it. why mantain hot water in "stand by" mode?. Go green america, please. Save some oil.
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@15:
I've never been sure which uses more energy: a slow trickle to keep an insulated tank at a certain temperature, or a firestorm to keep the shower (and possibly the sink at the same time) gushing water at 40 degrees Celsius or more.
Actually, comparing my environmental footprint here in Japan to when I lived in the US... The US really doesn't do that badly. Japan gets way more credit than they deserve.
Recently an American TV guy who has lived here for a million years showed off his American-style split-level house in Tokyo on TV. When he mentioned that he had central heating and air installed, the crowd gasped and clucked their tongues at what they assumed to be another example of the wasteful American. So they asked him how much his energy bill was in the winter. Less than 10,000 yen. And the summer? Same.
That is less than what my wife and I spend in our alternately freezing or sweltering apartment.
The difference?
Insulation. Double-paned windows. Tight seals on doors and windows.
If you design a building right, it doesn't take much to make the whole thing comfortable. If you don't, it costs tons to make even one room livable.
This looks like the shower heater I used growing up in Osaka. We had something similar to this, tho much smaller, above our sink for hot water. It wasn't until we moved to the states that I realized just how dangerous those things actually were or are. Thanks for the post it brought back some good memories of having to crank that thing!
I was a bit disappointed that this post is not about some fancy high-tech shower with a multitude of jets that can be set to vary in strength in one of several undulating patterns, with built-in colour therapy and aroma therapy features (and while we're talking about adding stuff to the water, let's have shampoo and shower gel injection, too) and a full-body blow dryer. The last paragraph of the quote above made up for it, though.
So, yeah, I also found the headline a bit misleading, as this really is about the gas boiler, but then again, if the shower is the only thing attached to that boiler, fair enough, no?
"During the course of my shower, occasionally an arm, thin and yellow as an egg noodle, would squeeze through the crack in the door, check the water temperature, adjust the knobs accordingly, and then slip back out."
Flying Spaghetti Monster? ZOMG! :O
I have one of these. They are standard issue in Japan. It really isn't difficult to use at all, except if you're wanting to exaggerate in a comical "ZOMG things are different in Japan!" sort of way. It is pretty similar to operating something like a gas barbecue, which I think most people can manage to learn to do.
And, as other posters have pointed out, it will give you endless hot water and also re-heat your bath for you. Japanese-style bathrooms are actually pretty neat, and a very efficient use of space.
This is just an in-line water heater. They're standard in Latin America too and they are MUCH more fuel-efficient than 'normal' water heaters, since they heat water on demand rather than keeping it hot around-the-clock. They also completely avoid the problem of running out of hot that plagues many American apartment buildings, hotels and dorms.
As an earlier commenter guessed, this is a rather outdated model. There are older ones, which need to be lit on each use with a match. Most current ones have an automatic electric sparker. The one in my house has a little generator which is turned by the water flow, and so it doesn't even need an electrical connection.
You should seriously consider installing one of these in their house to save on gas. You won't even know it's there.
(Note to moderator: I think I posted this anonymously, but I'm not sure so I'm posting it again. If I did, sorry!)