Covid 19 is almost a distant memory, but the douches remain.
During a time of extreme uncertainty in early 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, we saw the rapid influx of determined shoppers literally ‘wiping’ the supermarket shelves clean of all toilet paper and related products. This extremely bizarre phenomenon of panic buying across the globe then led to another even crazier, less publicised event in Australia. Thus introducing the “Douche”
Hand-held bidet sprays and trigger sprays
As eBay, DIY online stores and some hardware stores struggled to keep up with the massive demand of these product sales, we received many lead enquiries to effectively install the products into these unsuspecting homes. After discussing the desired installation of the douche sprayers and explaining the high-hazard backflow protection needed to protect the home potable cold-water supply from contamination, we would generally get “Thanks, but no thanks” from the potential customer and then they would move on to another company or potentially attempt the installation themselves. In some instances, the potential customers would simply say. “Well, why are these products being sold then???” Our answer is that “all Plumbing products need to be certified with a WELS rating and installed by a licensed Plumber, with a certificate of compliance provided on completion of the job.”
Our greatest fear (even worse than no TP availability) is that some of these products have been installed in a non-compliant manner and can potentially cause the residents of the home or surrounding homes to become very sick.
The bidet is a standard sanitary fixture across Europe, West Africa, and the Arab and Asian worlds. It is quickly catching on in popularity in Westernised countries for obvious reasons of convenience. In some cases, the user of bidets or douche sprayers has a spiritual connection with the products, which needs to be respected. Although this is the case, we need to protect our clean, fresh water supply and cannot allow it to happen here in Australia without being installed correctly by a Licensed Plumber.
For more information, please call us on 8367 8383 or email
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