Universal Design Renovations

I never used to think that much about showers. But then I guess that there aren’t that many people who do. Desiree’s stroke paralysed her down the left side and has left her wheelchair bound. One of the hardest tasks of our day is getting her showered. All up it currently takes us about an hour and a half (if everything goes well) from start to finish.  I sat down and worked it out. At this rate I am going to spend almost 23 days in the shower over the next 12 months. I now have a new found respect for shower design.

I have consequently spent a lot of time and trouble designing the showers in the project. As Desiree cant stand for any length of time she relies on a shower chair. Most showers have the waste in the centre of the shower. What this means is that the floor of the shower has to fall (slope) in two directions towards the plug hole. Have you ever tried to place a four legged chair on a surface that slopes in two directions. No matter how hard you try you always end up with a wobble. Boy is that annoying. We have solved this problem by installing gutter drains with stainless steel grids made by a company called Stormtech . You can get an idea of these in the pictures below.

Installing these drains means that we only need to have the shower floor fall one way. Hey no more wobbly (and dangerous) shower chairs. Now I needed to address how we could make the showering process quicker. The first thing was to have “drive up” (for wheelchairs) entries. You have no idea how many showers we have been in where it takes us at least 10 minutes to manoeuvre into the right position and then I have to adopt the skills of a contortionist just to get us in the door. Once in, there is certainly not any chance of swinging cats, not even a kitten could squeeze in. So no doors or screens and big enough for two. I figure if I am going to spend the best part of a month in the shower I might as well shower myself at the same time.

When it came to choosing the shower system I turned to our partners at Dorf for suggestions. They had just released a new shower system called the Orbit 5.  Orbit System 5 features a two way diverter that allows you to isolate either the overhead rain shower or the rail shower. The height of the rail shower is easily adjusted at the push of a button, and the durable chrome finish and sleek construction with a smooth surface hose ensures your bathroom always looks good and is easy to clean. They suggested that I match this up with on of the Eclipse family mixer taps. The Eclipse’s distinctive styling employs Dorf Ceradisc technology for complete water flow and temperature control, and Dorf Water Efficient Tapware (W.E.T.) technology to ensure minimal water use without compromising on performance. The combination of a polished chrome exterior and solid brass construction would ensure low maintenance and durability.  The Dorf Smart Eclipse range of tapware, offers an original Australian design with contemporary styling and subtle curves and is engineered to meet all applicable Australian Standards Certification of quality.

 As well as working well and looking good these tap fittings had to be water wise and relatively easy to install. The Orbit shower system has a three star WELS rating which means it uses about 9 litres of water a minute. Here is a copy of the Orbit 5 WELS certificate and Orbit 5 installation guide.

So hopefully with a bit of clever design and the use of great products I can achieve some efficiency in the showering process.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 10:07 pm and is filed under Renovation Rescue. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.