Wednesday, December 30, 2009

why ask why?

Remember the commercials back several years ago that asked, "Why ask why?"  I think it was a beer commercial or something.  I can't really remember.  Anyway, that question has been coming to my mind often lately, and it has to do with the design of our sweet little home here in the land of base housing.

Here's the thing.  Our bathrooms have no heat.  The rest of the house has radiator like things that span the baseboards, and unsightly though they may be, they do a pretty good job of keeping the house warm.  However, when these were being installed, it seems, someone decided that the bathrooms really didn't need heat.

Now, I may be overstating that a bit, because technically our 2 upstairs bathrooms do have what I would call a heat lamp.  It's an overhead light that warms the room up rather nicely, while you're in the shower, for instance.  However, it's a bright light with a loud fan that doesn't get left on at night.   So, of course, it gets downright freezing in there.  Let's just say that first thing in the morning, that toilet seat can make you wish that you were the luckier gender who can stand to pee.

Right now, it is 14 degrees outside with a wind chill of -1.  I am very thankful for heat of any kind and am not complaining about such a trivial thing.  But it really does make me wonder why.  Does it save that much money to skip the bathroom when installing heat vents?  Does the cold water in the pipes make it counter productive to try to heat those rooms?  Wouldn't the room where you are most likely to be naked and wet be the room that most needs heat?  Or is it a master plan to cut down on showers, thus water consumption?

These are the questions that keep me awake at night.  But why ask why?  There are some things the world may never know.

5 comments:

Merrill said...

why ask why? Try Bud dry. That's what it was! Wow, that is really funny about the bathrooms. I agree, not really intuitive of the designers. Our tiny bathrooms have one vent each and they become saunas unless we keep the vents closed- the opposite of your bathroom problem.

Jessie said...

HA! We have both problems! Our full bath becomes a sauna in the winter bc it has heat. Our half bath doesn't - and lets say I am with you on the standing thing. But at least I can just always go in the other bathroom... Maybe you should invent some sort of seat warmer. It could be like a hot water bottle shaped like a toilet seat that you leave sitting there until you need to use it...just an idea ;-)

Jackie said...

If they can make car seat warmers, surely there are toilet seat warmers out there. I googled and got some, um, interesting results. A little pricey but may just be worth it. My favorite was the "Takagi Warm Seat" It's tagline is "Some times the warmest place in the house isn't necessarily by the fire place." It even has hydraulics.

You're welcome.

Jennifer said...

I'm not sure it will make you feel any better but our master bathroom does have heat vents but still gets freezing!

The McNeills said...

謝謝,噢。很高興見到您!