A little context is in order first. Although people in the States take items like hot water, insulation and air conditioning for granted, most houses built in Ecuador do not have these. For rural Ecuadorians, a house is basically a shelter from the wind and rain and a place to call home. Houses that Gringos live in are generally either built from scratch or retrofitted to include the "creature comforts" that we're used to having.
If you've read my earlier blog entries, you're familiar with the electric "suicide shower" head that creates hot water for showers. I turned it on last week to take a shower and it suddenly had a bright orange glow inside. Not wanting to tempt fate, I turned off the breaker to the shower head and continued with a cool shower. (The wiring to the shower head was impeccable; the shower head itself had failed.) I told our hosts about it, and they immediately decided that installing a water heater was in order.
This is where the retrofitting comes in. This is the layout of the first floor of our casita:
(Please forgive the crudity of the drawing. MS Word is the only decent drawing tool that I have at the moment.)
The goal was to bring hot water to the kitchen sink (the dual ovals at the bottom) and the shower (that explosion-looking icon in the middle). With the water heater mounted on the side of the house next to the utility closet, here is how the water lines would run:
The water heater is an on-demand, gas-fueled unit, so it doesn't require electrical service; batteries provide the ignition, there is no tank for storing hot water and a propane tank provides the gas. It does require venting, however, so it will be installed outside under one of the eaves.
First step: run the water lines. Running the pipes around the exterior was easy enough:
(water line to the shower)
(water line to the kitchen)
The interior required much more effort, especially for the shower. The stairs were removed (two lag screws - no biggie), the old shower faucet was chiseled out and a channel for the new pipe was chiseled in:
The new faucet was installed with a little creativity to keep the hot on the right faucet:
All of the connections were made. Time to mud it back up and reinstall the stairs. Once it's painted, you'll never know it was there:
Last step - connect the water heater:
Sorry - one more step. We need new faucets, the kind that have two handles on them:
The whole process took about two days, and we couldn't be happier with the results. Oh, happy day indeed!
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