The one thing we didn't think to test when buying our condo was the shower. It worked... almost. The knob that switches the water from the tub to the shower (a diverter!) didn't actually switch it. It just made them both run at the same time. Sometimes it would give the tub all the hot water and the shower all the cold water, thus freezing you while burning your feet. Often, it would change its mind mid-shower and we ended up frozen or scalded at random times. The temperature was finicky, it was wasting a TON of water, and it filled our morning grogginess with frustration.

For the last six months, we have suffered and done endless Googling about diverters and mentioned the problem to friends and the building management a few times, and everyone always told us that this is just an old shower, it is broken, and the whole shower will need to be replaced. And we would sigh and say, "Gosh, that's going to cost at least $1500, isn't it?" and they would laugh and laugh and tell us that we were really underestimating the price of plumbers. Chris tried to fix it a few times, spending a whole afternoon removing the faulty (and rusted into place) diverter, while I hid in another room to avoid fretting to him about breaking it and igniting the wrath of our condo association. The thing is, times have changed since our shower was installed and diverters have changed as well. Thus, we bought two or three different kinds of diverters and none of them fit. He had to re-install the bad one just so the shower would (sort of) work. Eventually we gave up on fixing it and resigned ourselves to irritating showers and saving money until we could afford to speak to a plumber.

But then: Chris was in hunt of a new faucet and sink this past weekend (more joys of home ownership!), and he saw a diverter that looked somehow familiar... strangely enticing... perhaps even the holy grail of diverters! And he bought it in secret and dared not to tell me about it, lest we fail again in our attempts to fix the shower, and lo, there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And I went away for a few hours to sit on a picnic blanket and talk about boys with Agnes, and Christopher secretly installed the new diverter and then called me with joyous news, news of a working shower! A shower that runs independently of the tub! A shower that is about 75% quieter! A shower that does not try to burn you at random times!! And lo, the boy had earned his keep, and we took him out for beer, and he kept grinning because he was so frikkin' proud of himself.

And that, my friends, is how to fix a $2000 problem with an $18 diverter. Does that boy know how to woo my Dutch heart or what?

Labels: christopher, condo