Friday, December 20, 2013

Swashbuckling

swash·buck·le
ˈswôSHˌbəkəl,ˈswäSH-/
verb
gerund or present participle: swashbuckling
1.
engage in daring and romantic adventures with ostentatious bravado or flamboyance.


It finally happened.  I have been too sick to install the Swash 900 and the pain that accompanies my later stages of treatment week finally hit, meaning that it is again painful to...clean up.  So I called in the big guns.  My Dad.  He came in and installed the new seat.

The Swash 900 in all of it's automated beauty
After we aligned everything, hooked it up to a water source and plugged it into a temporary power source (extension cord running out of the toilet room to the sink area) we wanted to test it.  But surprisingly, nobody felt like dropping their pants to be the guinea pig on the first run of something could be a beautiful, but also horrible experience.  So I broke out the plastic wrap.  Having been on too many band trips to count, I'm sort of an expert at wrapping a toilet in plastic wrap without it looking like something is out of place.   

The purpose, of course, for the plastic wrap was to observe the proper function of all of the mechanisms without having to actually sit on the thing.  The upside is that we would be able to see how tings worked and tinker with settings in a safe and controlled manner.  There was one problem with this plan...the seat is pressure sensitive.  It won't work unless it senses that there is someone sitting on it.  Bummer.


So we did what any good tester would do and we "simulated" a person sitting on the seat.  Basically we pressed down really hard with our hands and eventually knees.  This worked as long as the pressure was even.  If we shifted in the slightest way possible, the seat would beep and shut down.  This is a wonderful safety feature now that I think of it.  Myah is mildly interested in how the whole thing works and I would be surprised if she tried to show a friend how everything worked while we were in another room.  This feature ensures that I don't have a mess to clean up when I hear little girls screaming and giggling.  


So how does it work?  It's ingenious.  Once you sit on the seat it snaps out of eco mode and heats up in less than 2 seconds.  It dumps a little water out of the nozzles because that is the water that has gotten cold waiting for the next round and fills them with warm water from the tankless heater in the back of the unit.  The seat remembers what your favorite setting is and always maintains those values until you change them.  In my case, the water is set on the warmest setting, the nozzle is positioned right where it needs to be and the water pressure and spray width are perfect.  Yes, these are all things that you can adjust and customize to your preferences.  


When that faithful time comes, you simply pick up the remote (remember, if I'm paying that much for something you plug in, it's going to have a remote) and you have two choices.  Rear or Front.  Pretty self explanatory. So, once you make your choice, there is some noise from the unit and you can hear the nozzle come out of it's storage location.  Then the fun begins.  The water that comes out isn't the final temperature that you've set but it only takes a second to get there and it is in no way cold at all.  At that point you can change the nozzle position (fore and aft), change the water pressure and temperature (all of which happen instantly) as well as the width of the stream.  You can have it pin point or choose a wide option.  I go with the wide option.  


I haven't had a point where the water stops on it's own yet.  I think it times out at 2 minutes, but I manually stop mine before it goes that long.  Let me be clear here, this thing feels like nothing else and I may appreciate it a bit too much already, but I'm going to try to keep my relationship with the Swash on a strictly "service provider" level.  And for any of you readers who have moderate to severe hemorrhoids, this thing is a Godsend.  It has paid for itself in the 18 hours that it's been installed simply for the relief that it has provided in that area alone.  


Conclusion?  Buy one.  You won't regret it.  ;)


Go do some swashbuckling this weekend.  (and no...it doesn't have to include something that cleans your butt...but...always try to keep your butt clean...I mean that's just obvious isn't it?)


Jake

2 comments:

  1. Sounds very, um, interesting. Inviting isn't quite the right word. Perhaps playful? Curious?

    ReplyDelete