Sometimes I think plumbers get a raw PR deal. There are instances where they do a fabulous job, display a sense of humour and are great communicators. Here is the email dialogue between my wife and our plumber.

Mrs H:

One question…you know at the bottom of the vertical shower rail there is a hoopy thing through which the hose is fed…can we cut that off?! The trouble is, when I want to just wash my hair quickly I need to take the shower head down and do it leaning over the bath, but because of  that thing being there it restricts how low the hose can come and I sort of have to hold the thing way above my head…do you get my drift? It seems to me we could take it off as it serves little purpose… or does it?!

Plumber John:

It’s there to prevent the shower head from being able to get into the bath water which would cause a Fluid category 5 backflow contamination risk as defined in the The Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999.

In practical real-world [1] terms this means that if, say, Fireman Sam comes and sticks his pump on a hydrant in your street he might actually suck water back out of your house pipework and if you’ve dunked your shower head in the bath while he’s doing so that could suck bathwater back through the pipes, and since your botty is in the bath said water might include “faecal material or other human waste”. Then, having put out the fire, Sam disconnects his pump and Mrs Goggins [2] fills the kettle to make him a Nice Cup Of Tea, drawing in some of your Fluid Category 5 bathwater which is now in the public main.

OK, so how likely is that? But the water regs are framed from the point of view of “what would happen if…” not “how likely…” (and, to be fair, taken over the entire country and ongoing time, such situations are more probably likely to occur sooner or later).

Anyway you could unscrew the shower head, take the hose out of its hoopy plastic prison ring and screw it back up again and use it as you wish. Just don’t blame me if Thames Water’s goons come breaking down your doors in the middle of the night ;^)

[1] depending what world one is on
[2] sorry am I mixing up characters?

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