A couple of weeks ago, I had a plumber out to fix my shower valve, which was leaking inside the wall. He didn’t have the right cover when he did the repair, so he came back five days later to install the cover. I thought that would be adequate time for the wall to dry out, but it absolutely was not. The inside of the wall was soaked. I mean, totally saturated.

So, a week after he came back and installed the cover, it popped off the wall with such force that I heard it from the next room. I can be sure, but I think what happened was that because there was so much moisture in the wall, and it was 85º outside that day, and the sun shone on the stucco all afternoon, the water vapor built up too much pressure inside the wall, and blew the seal around the cover.

I took the cover off, and for the past few days, we’ve let a space heater run in the bathroom with the door closed and the fart fan on. About 2/3 to 3/4 of the bathroom is tile, so it slowly soaks up the heat. By the time the sun goes down, it feels like we left a window to hell open in there. I must say, though, it’s kind of nice to have a shit and a sphitz. Brushing my teeth with hot toothpaste, on the other hand, is extremely unpleasant.

In the plus column, however, when we shut off the space heater at night, it radiates the heat back into the air, keeping the bathroom nice and warm for us when we wake up in the morning. I might just keep it in there all winter long.