Growing up in Chicago, we didn’t have a shower in our house. We had a footed tub in the bathroom that was filled half way on Saturday night. If I was lucky, I got to take my bath first before my younger brother. The water was used for both baths, don’t you know. I remember, especially in summer, scrubbing away at the grey ring around my ankles. Now you can understand the importance in being first. I don’t think I took my first shower until I went away to college.
(Tonight’s photos are of the little birds sharing our RV pads. Eastern phoebe.)
So what brought this memory back to my mind, you might ask? Well, I’m having an issue with water pressure in the rig. The water out of the pipe has plenty of pressure. If I use my water pump, I have plenty of pressure. But if I use the water hook-up to the rig, the water fairly trickles out of the faucets. There is enough pressure to wash dishes and brush my teeth, but take a shower? Not hardly!
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Loggerhead shrike.
A nice feature of many rigs is a spray nozzle next to the toilet to help clean the bowl. I really like this nozzle. Now, all it does is drip when I press down the lever. When I was in the throws of my worst back problems, I couldn’t stand long enough to take a shower anyway, so it wasn’t as great an issue. I resorted to a sponge bath each night by waiting for the bathroom sink to fill. Now that I’m more mobile, I really would like to take a shower. That’s what reminded me of my once a week bath when I was growing up. 
The other volunteers and I have tried everything we can think of to figure out this dilemma, but nothing has worked. At this point, I have two options to get a real shower. I can go up to the community building to take one there, or I can fill the fresh water tank and use the water pump. I hesitate to do the second option because I’m not crazy about putting that water in the tank. It is not drinkable because of all the minerals and iron in it, and I’m really not wanting to put that in my tank. I’m thinking I’ll be calling Thibodeaux’s in Louisiana after the holiday weekend to see if they have any suggestions.
Wish I could preen and clean up as easily as this mockingbird!
Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later, Judy
Do you have a screen filter where you hose hooks up to the mh? Take the hose off and look to see if is cloged up.
ReplyDeleteIs it just your rig that has no pressure, or are the others affected too?
ReplyDeleteDo you use an external pressure regulator? Sometimes they go bad. Have you tried to see if the pressure increases without it?
ReplyDeleteOr there might be a built-in one in your city water inlet, so you might have to replace it, after you have checked the screen.
Happy Tails, and Trails, Penny, TX
We had the same problem in our motorhome. I cured it by removing the rigs water filter.
ReplyDeleteNow we live without filtered water but we have a shower with pressure and a spray nozzle that works.
I'm considering getting a pressure regulator that can adjust water pressure inside the rig so we can have filtered water and good water pressure.
Hope you get a remedy soon to solve this troublesome problem.
Mac & Dianna
I don't know of any suggestions not already given. Check the obvious first...your pressure regulator, the filter screen on the hookup or even the connection filter to your incoming water. If your water hose is too narrow, y0u may need a wider water hose.
ReplyDeleteIssues of the water systems of the rigs is still somewhat of a mystery to me. I'm not quite understanding what the "fresh" water tank services and what the "city" water goes to. Fresh in kitchen and bathroom sink? City in shower and potty? But the water pump runs when we flush the potty. Someone is going to have to explain this to me at the Alfa rally....
ReplyDeleteWe removed our water filter long ago...We are not scared by the water anywhere...Heck, when we are all asleep we swallow at least a couple spiders while snoring....Try removing that filter...Don't be scared.
ReplyDeleteEverybody else has already offered any suggestions I might have. Sure hope you come up with something. I'd be missing my shower for sure.
ReplyDeletesure hope all the suggestions from everyone else solve your shower problem!!!
ReplyDeleteNo advice but so remember the days of having to bath with my brother, until it wasn't considered appropriate anymore then it was "flip the coin" as to who would go first and who second. same water. Oh the days!
ReplyDeleteThe only shower we had until I was about 11 was the sprinkler on the lawn.
Like you, we never had a shower while I was growing up either. First experience with having a shower occured in the Navy when I signed up and was sent to boot camp. My first hot shower was love at first feeling:))
ReplyDeleteI'm not a real picky people about water either. I figure a little bad stuff now and again goes a long way in keeping the immune system updated and tuned up.
Check your water filter. It could have been doing what it should, and could be plugged up with silt and rust. A new cartridge should fix this. I would also suggest you check the water pressure after your pressure reducer, in case it has plugged up, or has failed.
ReplyDeleteThere is usually a rubber washer inside the water connection on the RV which has a screen in it. This may have plugged up with silt.
Good luck.
Like a few others, I don't use any of that water filtering stuff at all. It ain't the water that's going to kill me!
ReplyDeleteI agree, check your pressure regulator first. As for the shower??? I was the youngest of four - guess who got the last bath on Saturday night? I still don't like baths. Didn't have a home shower until high school when we moved. I was well past having to share the bath water by then but the glorious feeling of the shower was heaven.
ReplyDeleteNeed your help with a bird ID on my blog, thanks!
We had a cistern on the ranch in Redmond & water to fill it came in the ditch in the winter once a month, that water had to last for whole month. I was girl in high school & got 1st crack at the bath, my brothers had to follow me :) Senior year we moved to a house in town and it had a shower, yea!!
ReplyDeleteHope your shower problem gets resolved soon. Me I would fill the fresh water tank and enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI remember when a shower was having a bucket of clean water poured over your head to clean off the dirty water and soap from the bath.
I lived in a house with 7 younger siblings and my parents, and we only had one bathroom with a tub, no shower. I don't think any of us ever had to share the water. My younger brothers still gripe about having to wait for the bathroom in the morning because I was getting ready for work - bath, fix hair, hair spray, etc. The oldest rules, however, and I was bringing money into the house, not siphoning it out.
ReplyDeleteWe handle our water a bit differently, we hardly ever hook up to city water, but prefer to run off our tanks. We use a whole house filter, which we only use when filling the tanks. It's external, but the refills are only a few dollars and it's a great filter. You can see it at the bottom of this page.
ReplyDeletehttp://cholulared.com/AboutCholulaRed/Exterior.html
As to the minerals in the water, we've spent an extensive amount of time in the southwest where the water is quite hard and full of minerals. We opted for an external water softener. Since we started using the whole house filter and the water softener, we no longer have any problems and our tanks haven't accumulated a lot of hard water deposits.
Good luck with this,it's sure a pain not to be able to shower in the rig.
I also meant to comment on your pictures, they're stunning. Thanks so much for taking the time, please keep posting them!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a preschooler we lived in a house that only had a shower. Mom would put the washtub in the shower stall to use as a bathtub for us kids. We moved from that house while I was in kindergarten and my next experience with a shower was after gym class in high school. In between Dad taught us we could take a bath in just a couple inches of water. I never understood how my two brothers could then empty the hot water tank before my turn came. They said they didn't think they needed to leave any hot water for me since I would stay in until it was cold anyway.
ReplyDeleteWe finally moved to a house with a shower when I was in high school. From the comments, it sounds like I was one of the lucky ones. However, when I went to stay at my grandparents, which seems like most of my childhood, I fell into the ranks of the Saturday bath takers. But we had to haul the water from the spring, heat it on the stove and pour it into one of those large galvanized tubs. Seems like I was usually first or second, but you sure didn't want to be farther back that second in a family bathing line.
ReplyDeleteThe water is already running through all your systems. I would not worry about filling the tank. If your filter is not clogged just leave it in place while you fill. We have the pressure problem sometimes. It is like the system gets an airlock. I turn on all the faucets at the same time and that seems to clear it.
ReplyDeleteOn the farm where I spent the first 10 years of my life, it was a galvanised wash basin behind the stove. There was a "water tank" type of arrangement on the side of our wood burning stove. We had cold running water that was plumbed into the kitchen sink. That was the extent of the plumbing. You can figure out the rest.
ReplyDeleteSo my first ever shower was at the main house of an estate, where my parents ended up getting a job, just outside King City, Ontario. Bit of a "big move" from N.S. to Ontario.
Mom was the cook and Dad was....wait for it, The Caretaker. (I know, seems a little curious, considering what I did for the last 22 years of my working life. Didn't plan it that way)
Anyway, all I remember was how glorious that shower was, but nobody really explained to me that, if the soap happened to drop to the floor of the shower stall and block the drain, that would NOT BE GOOD.
We had a little bit of a flood.
Hey, I thought standing in a few inches of water was perfectly normal, what did I know? I had never taken a shower in my life. Hello? A little instruction?
Thankfully that shower was outside the sauna, (ya, these folks had a couple bucks) and there was a drain in the floor. No harm done, but I was a little embarrassed to say the least.
Funny the things you remember.
Good times.
Here are my thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. Check the water filter (as others have said)
2. Check your pressure regulator - try removing it entirely.
3. Your anti-backflow valve is right behind where you connect the water service. It could be crudded up with minerals and restricting water flow. You really need a water softener when you are in Texas and many other states. It will help tremendously in keeping the mineral buildup at bay.
Great reflections. I spent the first 12 years of my life on a farm in New York. At that time we had no running water in the houses and baths were taken with water hauled from the well. So you did not waste it on just one person using it for baths. Not to mention the outhouses:(
ReplyDeleteIn the motorhome, we always use the water pump for showers with water that has been stored in the tank. Since we use several filters in the water lines, the pressure is not adaquate from the water line for showers. This system works fine for us.
Not sure when I had my first indoor shower. Probably, when I moved from a one room school where I and my neighbor kids when to school with the teacher my parents hired and controlled to the newly formed central school system. That is another whole story. But I am beginning to think that we should go back to the old system:)
Shower? What's a shower?
ReplyDeleteLike you, I experienced my first shower when I went away to college. Not only did we not have a shower, we didn't have running hot water. We did have a clawfoot bathtub, however, so we had to carry our hot water in pails up the stairs to fill the bathtub. Needless to say, the bathtub was never full, just filled a couple of inches. I was the only girl, so like you, I got to take my bath in the "fresh" water. How I reveled in the shower when I got to college!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great set of memories about tubs vs showers. We had a tub and every one took baths because my father refused to have a shower. It was "too messy". My last year of high school my mother finally made him put one in but we had to wipe down all the tiles around the tub before getting out, AND the curtain. SHEESH!!
ReplyDeleteHope you get your shower back. It does sound like a filter problem.
I love l o n g hot Showers. My first shower was probably in high school after gym class.
ReplyDelete