Shower us with insight

August 18, 2008 5:58 AM

Help! We are at an unfamilar beach house for the week, and for our lives we can't get two of the showers here to work. They are both configured the same (see crappy cell phone pic 1 and pic 2).

The main tub faucet works by pulling the main knob thingee out and up (and you turn that left and right to adjust temp). We get all that. But there's no lever or button to get water up to the shower (yes, there is a shower faucet up there).

We are at a loss... and feel like complete idiots. Any suggestions?

posted by Ike_Arumba to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

Best answer:
Pull down on the rim of the faucet. That should get that water moving up to the shower.
posted by wg at 6:03 AM on August 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The main tub faucet.
Grab that where the water comes out and pull down.
posted by vacapinta at 6:03 AM on August 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have (I think) an identical shower in my apartment and it took me forever to figure out. The shower is turned on by pulling down on the metal ring around the lower faucet. It slides down about an inch and the shower should start flowing.
posted by UnnotciedTypo at 6:03 AM on August 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Yeah, try what wg said. There might be a ring around the bottom of the faucet where the water comes out, and you pull down on that to get the shower going.
posted by Grither at 6:04 AM on August 18, 2008

Based on the pictures, only suggestion I can think of is to push the handle it in? Or try pulling it out.

Since you aren't showing pictures of the whole setup (could be something on the shower faucet) it's kinda hard to suggest anything else.
posted by gmm at 6:05 AM on August 18, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks everyone -- yep you pull down on the ring around the bottom of the faucet. We NEVER would have figured that out. How completely unintuitive.

Gotta go take shower!! Thanks again.
posted by Ike_Arumba at 6:09 AM on August 18, 2008

Looks like everyone already answered the question, but I thought I would add that I have the same one in my work provided apartment building. Had a coworker who sponge bathed for two weeks because she was too embarrassed to ask how the thing worked. It is so not intuitive.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 8:14 AM on August 18, 2008

Ha! I knew before I came in here it would be that fixture. My grandma has one of those in her latest duplex, and I messed with it for like 10 minutes the first time I was in there, too embarrassed to admit I couldn't figure it out. Bad design!
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:43 AM on August 18, 2008

I too knew what it was before I even read the entire question. I had that faucet design in my old apartment and the first day I took a shower there I couldn't figure it out either. I had to ask my roommate the next day so I didn't have to kneel to wash my hair again.
posted by bedhead at 9:53 AM on August 18, 2008

Just got back from vacationing with family in CO. The first shower I tried to take in my niece's bathroom brought me face-to-face with this same dilemma. After dinkin' around with it for about five minutes, I got dressed again and was heading downstairs to find an assistant. As I opened the bathroom door, I saw my niece leaning against the door jam, waiting for me. She hadn't heard the distinctive sound of the shower water running, and had figured out that I was stumped. All I said was "yeah." She showed me how to pull down on the apparatus, and I felt stupid. Clean, but stupid.
posted by Corky at 2:48 PM on August 18, 2008