A few days ago I wrote a post here, telling you that I was close to solving the water issues here at the mission house in Malawi, but little did I know that the solution will come from a different place altogether.
Then, I thought one of the faucets was gone bad, because I tested it and it looked like it caused the much dreaded crossover. I concluded that, once I change it, the water problems will be history, but I was wrong.
Yesterday, we went to Blantyre, a town about 43 miles from Zomba, and we found a new set of faucets, for the sink and the shower. After arriving home and installing them, we found out that the problem persisted; hot water was not reaching the shower even though the water pressure seems okay. My new conclusion was clear: the problem has to be somewhere else.
Lita and I sat down and went through the history of our life in Malawi, thinking about each and every little modification we had done to the installation. Some three months ago, we installed a new water heater in the apartment where our guests stay and, although it is the same house, the water systems are separated and it could not have been the problem. Almost 1 year ago, we changed our water heater, but we had just tested it and we ruled it out.
Some 5 years ago, though, we have done some more major changes in our bathroom. When we first came, there were two, smaller, separate bathrooms, each with its own sink, shower and toilet. This seems to be something Malawi or UK does a lot, but we believed it was senseless, so we decided to join them and make one, bigger. We had to cancel one of the showers, sinks and toilets and we thought the work was done in a proper way. We were wrong. The so-called plumber, a young man from one of the villages were we used to work in, most likely didn't understand how cold water and hot water work, and I believe he thought both piper were carrying the same water, the cold one. After cancelling out the shower, he left the pipes connected, allowing the hot and cold water to mix at their free will. People in the villages here don't even have cold tap water, much less cold and hot. I can understand how he had no idea what he was doing.
Regardless, one thing is true; he didn't know what he was doing and we didn't know he didn't.
If you watch closely the picture above, you will notice how primitive the old, original shower system was. The two pipes, for hot and cold, had small little taps installed (you can see an example below). After the taps, the pipes joined into a single one that delivered the water to the shower head. Everything is extremely simple and, to be honest, it works, but it looks awful. When the plumber was tasked to cancel this system, he plugged the places where the two taps and shower head were and that was it. Those plugs only stop the water from coming out of the pipes and have no benefit in cancelling anything.
Although this mess was done 5 years ago, I don't know exactly why the problems started just recently. A good friend of mine, who is a professional plumber, tried to explain to me how the variations in the water pressure from the city, together with the deposited in the galvanized pipes, have most likely been the cause why we only noticed the issue now. I believe he is right, since the water pressure nowadays is not like it used to be.
The important thing is that we found out the problem and, today, we had fixed it. I separated all those pipes and cancel all of them out. Everything works as expected, we are now happy to be able to enjoy our hot showers again.
I have to admit that I could not have done anything without others. Lita is the one that remembered the modification done 5 years ago. I had completely forgotten about that. My friend, the plumber, assured me that the problem could only be there and insisted I needed to break the tiles and the wall and sort it out.
In the picture below, you can see how those pipe plugs look like.
Next, a tap similar to the ones we used to have at the shower.
Our new faucet. We decided against the single hand faucets, since they are more prone to failure here.
At the end, all I can say is what I already said before; here in Malawi we have to know a little bit of everything, this is the reality of life in Africa It is not only Evangelism, preaching or Bible Studies, but also tearing down walls, plumbing and a lot of headache. May God be glorified through everything.
Pray for us!
Pray for Malawi!Labels: cold water, crossover, hot water, Malawi, plumbing, water, water heater
