Shower Systems for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMLXXVIII

three-knob shower control panel

No one can know, of course, but sometimes people Google search terms that are more complex – or perhaps we should say "less basic" – than the uninitiated might think. When the uninitiated in question happens to be a contributor to eHow.com or the niche sites that have taken its place, our staffers' DotDdar¹ trips quite readily. take, for instance the query, "How to Turn on a Shower That Has Three Knobs" that Damon Koch attempted to answer back in 2015. The powers that be at Leaf Group apparently decided that his submission was subpar (probably because of length), and so sent it to cleanup team member Rachelle Dragani for a rewrite. The result was... not an improvement.

Koch made the basic assumption that the OQ was standing in a bathtub starting at three knobs: hot, cold, and a third that he (correctly) identified as the diverter control. Turn the middle knob one way to use the shower, the other way to use the tub. Dragani, who did little more than prettify Koch's words while expanding the text from 220 words to 560, came to exactly the same conclusion:

"...turn the third knob in the direction that directs the flow to where you want it to go, whether that's to the showerhead to take a shower or to the faucet to fill up the bathtub..."

...although she didn't categorically state that the third knob is a diverter, she said, "it's probably a diverter valve." While such a knob would control the valve instead of be the valve, Rachelle actually blew it all by burning up her additional 340 words to prattle about your "nice, relaxing shower" instead of thinking for a minute. Yeah, Rachelle (and Damon before you): sometimes the shower is a stall and not a bathtub. What about then, huh?

We included an image of a shower system's controls up there just to get across the point that not every shower setup looks like something out of the 1960s. Modern showers can have overhead rain showers and sidewall jets; some even have steam functions. When you run into one of those configurations, you have to inspect the panel and translate some icons. You know, red and blue dots or lines for the temperature control, and some sort of descriptive images to show when you're engaging the rain function or the sidewall jets.

Just a diverter knob? Next time don't ask our Dumbass of the Day about shower systems; instead, let someone who's seen a modern shower address the question. OK? OK.

¹ c.f. "Gaydar"; the ability to detect a gay person without obvious cues

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