Escutcheon. It’s one of my favourite words. It sounds like either a cut of mutton found right near the Barnsley chop, or something a pirate would do to you. “Escutcheon him to the mizzenmast, me hardies!” Of course, it’s neither. It’s the decorative wallplate that surrounds a tub or shower faucet. (Looking up the definition today, I also discovered it describes the shape of one’s pubic hair, rhomboid on a male, triangular on a female. Good to know.) I’ve been thinking about escutcheons lately (mostly the tub- and shower-related ones) because it’s the location of another idea I think Kohler would be fools to pass up. (Still waiting to hear back re: the glow-in-the-dark toilet.) Now that I pay for hot water, I get a bit obsessive about how much I waste. And I figure I waste a whole bunch making sure the shower is the right temperature before I get in. Our hot water heater runs extremely hot–I keep meaning to adjust it–and as a result I spend a lot of time fiddling with the taps, swinging between scalding and frigid until I find a temperature I can endure. I’d like to say “the perfect temperature” but I never, ever arrive at the perfect temperature. Faucet knobs are just too blunt instruments, perfect for getting the water into the right vicinity, but terrible at getting much closer. I’m told people with fancy bathrooms have digital controls, kind of like the dual-zone climate controls that come standard in an Audi A6*, to let them specify the precise temperature of their shower. I wouldn’t know numerically what I need, but I sure know the feel of it. So I’m thinking of a second knob on the escutcheon, (as it were) designed like the fine-tuner on a violin or a Floyd Rose tremolo. You wouldn’t use it to turn the water on and off, just to dial in to the precise water temperature you’d like. It gets you in the shower faster, since you can adjust while you’re standing in the shower, which means you can get out of the shower faster. Which means you save money on hot water. So I guess if Kohler (Seriously, Kohler, quit ignoring me. I’ve got a bunch more ideas.) picks this one up, they owe me a cut of the profits and everyone who uses it owes me a cut of the savings. And then I can afford to run my hot water all the damn day long. [*Did I really just weasel a reference to a client into this post? Or is the Audi A6 really all that? Tell you what: visit your nearest Audi dealer for a test drive and decide for yourself.] __ Ideas Free to a Good Home is a clearinghouse of ideas we’re too lazy to develop ourselves.
