Shower

Illustration of showers from Traité sur l'aliénation mentale et sur les hospices des aliénés (Treatise on insanity and on the hospices of the insane) by Joseph Guislain (1826). At the time it was thought cold water showers could alleviate mental illness[6]

The first mechanical shower, operated by a hand pump, was patented in England in 1767 by William Feetham, a stove maker from Ludgate Hill in London. His shower contraption used a pump to force the water into a vessel above the user's head and a chain would then be pulled to release the water from the vessel. Although the system dispensed with the servant labour of filling up and pouring out buckets of water, the showers failed to catch on with the rich as a method for piping hot water through the system was not available. The system would also recycle the same dirty water through every cycle.

This early start was greatly improved in the anonymously invented English Regency shower design of circa 1810 (there is some ambiguity among the sources).[2] The original design was over 10 feet (3 m) tall, and was made of several metal pipes painted to look like bamboo. A basin suspended above the pipes fed water into a nozzle that distributed the water over the user's shoulders. The water on the ground was drained and pumped back through the pipes into the basin, where the cycle would repeat itself. The original prototype was steadily improved upon in the following decades until it began to approximate the shower of today in its mode of operation. Hand-pumped models became fashionable at one point as well as the use of adjustable sprayers for different water flow. The reinvention of reliable indoor plumbing around 1850[7] allowed free-standing showers to be connected to a running water source, supplying a renewable flow of water.

Modern showers were installed in the barracks of the French army in the 1870s as an economic hygiene measure, under the guidance of François Merry Delabost, a French doctor and inventor.[8] As surgeon-general at Bonne Nouvelle prison in Rouen, Delabost had previously replaced individual baths with mandatory communal showers for use by prisoners, arguing that they were more economical and hygienic.[9] First six, then eight shower stalls were installed. The water was heated by a steam engine and in less than five minutes, up to eight prisoners could wash simultaneously with only twenty litres of water. The French system of communal showers was adopted by other armies, the first being that of Prussia in 1879, and by prisons in other jurisdictions. They were also adopted by boarding schools, before being installed in public bathhouses. The first shower in a public bathhouse was in 1887 in Vienna. In France, public bathhouses and showers were established by Charles Cazalet, firstly in Bordeaux in 1893 and then in Paris in 1899.[10]

Domestic showers are most commonly stall showers or showers combined with a bathtub. A stall shower is a dedicated shower area which uses a door or curtain to contain water spray. The shower/tub format saves bathroom space and enables the area to be used for either a bath or a shower and commonly uses a sliding shower curtain or door to contain the water spray. Showers may also be in a wet room, in which there is no contained shower area, or in a dedicated shower room, which does not require containment of water spray. Domestic showers can have a single shower head, multiple shower heads, handheld shower head(s) or other variations, all which may be adjustable as needed to varying degrees.

Public shower room

Many modern athletic and aquatic facilities provide showers for use by patrons, commonly in gender segregated changing rooms. These can be in the form of individual stalls shielded by curtains or a door or communal shower rooms. The latter are generally large open rooms with any number of shower heads installed either directly into the walls or on posts throughout the shower area. Open showers are often provided at public swimming pools and at popular beaches. Military forces around the world set up field showers to enable the washing away of dangerous residue from modern weapons such as caustic chemicals, deadly biological agents, and radioactive materials, which can harm forces on both sides of a conflict.[11]

A wet room often refers to a bathroom without internal dedicated or raised areas which has an open shower. Structurally, a wet room requires the bathroom to have a gradient or slope towards a drain hole, and a foul air trap connecting the floor to the waste pipes. Depending on region, the term wet room can also encompass other rooms such as laundry rooms. In Norway, for example, any room with tap water and a drain in the floor is considered a wet room.[12] Different jurisdictions often have special regulations concerning the design and construction of wet rooms to prevent damage from damp air or water leakage, e.g. mold.

There are also often special regulations concerning electrical installations in wet rooms. For example, since water supplies often have their own electrical grounding, there can be an added risk of injury associated with ground faults, and some jurisdictions therefore require the installation of residual-current devices in wet rooms.

Though the installation requirements of each of shower will differ, the installation of a shower in general requires the laying of several water transportation pipes, including a pipe for hot water and for cold water, and a drainage pipe. It is important that the wet areas of a bathroom be waterproof, and multiple layers of waterproofing can be employed. Grout is used to fill gaps between tiles, but grout and tile setting materials are generally porous. Tiles are generally waterproof, though a shower pan must be installed beneath them as a safety to prevent water leakage.[23] Thus small mosaic tiles offer less of a defense than large format tiles. Sub-tile waterproofing is important when tiles are being used. Best practice requires a waterproofing material to cover the walls and floor of the shower area that are then covered with tile, or in some countries with a sheet material like vinyl.

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  Repairing damaged tile in a shower stall with a caulking gun
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  Shower repair showing drain piping with trap
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  Diverter valve about to be installed behind a shower

A shower may be equipped with a second emergency drain outside of the shower in case of overflow. An emergency overflow drain is required in Australia and some European countries.

A shower head

A shower head is a perforated nozzle that distributes water over solid angle a focal point of use, generally overhead the bather. A shower uses less water than a full immersion in a bath. Some shower heads can be adjusted to spray different patterns of water, such as massage, gentle spray, strong spray, and intermittent pulse or combination modes.

Hard water may result in calcium and magnesium deposits clogging the head, reducing the flow and changing the spray pattern. For descaling, various acidic chemicals or brushes can be used or some heads have rubber-like jets that can be manually descaled. A homemade remedy is to immerse it in a solution of water and vinegar for a while, since the vinegar is able to dissolve limescale.

Some governments around the world set standards for water usage and regulate shower heads. For example, in the United States, residential and most commercial shower heads must flow no more than 9.5 litres (2.1 imp gal; 2.5 US gal) per minute per the Department of Energy ruling 10 CFR 430. Low-flow shower heads that have a water flow of equal or less than 7.6 litres (1.7 imp gal; 2.0 US gal) per minute (2.0 gallons per minute), can use water more efficiently by aerating the water stream, altering nozzles through advanced flow principles or by high-speed oscillation of the spray stream. The US EPA administers a voluntary water saving program, WaterSense, which can certify low-flow shower heads.

Curtains can be used in shower or bathtub enclosures with two main purposes: to provide privacy and to prevent water from flooding or spraying outside the shower or bathtub area. Shower and bathtub curtains usually surround the bath inside the tub or shower area and are held up with railings or curtain rods high on the wall or ceiling. To accommodate the different types of bathtub shapes, railings can come in different sizes and are flexible in their design. The curtains are usually made from vinyl, cloth, or plastic.

Some people use two shower curtains: one that is inside the tub, which is mainly functional or decorative as well, and an outer shower curtain, which is purely decorative. The bottom portion of the inner curtain often comes with magnetic discs or suction cups which adhere to the bathtub itself.

Shower or bathtub doors are doors (also called screens) used in bathrooms that help keep water inside a shower or bathtub and are alternatives to shower curtains. They are available in many different styles such as framed or frameless, sliding or swing. They are usually constructed of aluminium, clear glass, plexiglass or tempered glass. Shower doors can come in many different hardware finishes and glass patterns that can match other bathroom hardware such as faucets and shower heads. There are also shower doors that are in a neo angle design for use on shower pans that have the neo design as well. The design of the shower pan is extremely important as the shower door must be the type required for the pan in order to work. A shower door requires plastic lining along the edges of the door to protect against water leaking out.

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  Bathtub curtain
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  Shower curtain
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  Raisable shower door
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  Bathtub door