When I first began my search for an apartment some of the ads referenced an electric shower system and others an immersion system. I didn’t think much of it, more focused on finding a decent place in a suitable location. And as previously mentioned in a post, I was getting to the point of desperation in finding an apartment.

As the guy was showing me the apartment, I ended up renting, and he explained to turn on the water tank that I needed to flip a switch on the wall in the kitchen and to wait about 15 minutes for the water to heat up. No problem I said, thinking it was just another way the Irish are extra conservative on energy, and figuring I would leave the tank on overnight and turn it off when I wasn’t home.

The first time I used it, I followed his instructions and switched it on and waited the 15 minutes before a shower. I found that the tank is probably a 20-gallon tank which equals a shower that lasts a little over 5 minutes. For us Americans who like our long hot showers, this too me felt as if I had stepped back in time to some archaic age of water and energy conservation that a first world country like this shouldn’t have to deal with.

After that, I decided to turn the system on before going to bed and have it nice and warm in the mornings and use that extra 15 minutes of sleep time. Unfortunately, when trying this and turning the shower on the next morning, it was cold. I checked the main circuits, and everything looked fine. So, I drug my tired ass to work and used the showers in the gym at the office. From there called the owner of the place and told him my issue. He was surprised to hear I was having problems as my immersion was relatively new.

A few days later he fixed it and informed me the issue was that I was leaving it on too long, and I found out there was another circuit on the tank itself that pops out when the tank hits a point. I’m not sure if it’s based on time or temperature. I began to think of ideas on how I could jam the circuit closed so that it wouldn’t pop out, but didn’t make any changes right away, until one morning as I was supposed to leave on vacation for a week, I did what I always do. I woke up slowly, groggy, and cursing the street noise coming through the walls and windows. From there it was out of bed and into the shower only to find the water cold. Curses I thought, as I went into the living room and climbed up on the kitchen counter. And with my naked ass hanging out I pressed the button to reset the tank, at which point was zapped back by the shock of the extra voltage running through my body because I neglected to turn the main circuit to the tank off.

I’m sure any woman who has seen it can appreciate the site of my naked body on the floor, but an extra volt or two probably would have resulted in my sexy naked ass laying on the kitchen floor dead for a week before anyone I work with realized I hadn’t returned from vacation.

Never wanting to experience that, my current system of dealing with the tank involves the handle from a large plastic spoon being jammed against the button on the tank and into the wall to not allow the on tank system to switch off. A fix that has caused one of my co-workers to state that my fix will result in the tank exploding.