Recurring argument about hot water

[Quattrocento]

Throughout our marriage we've had this recurring argument - which happens to be about hot water. Slightly sad, I know but I really need to know if IABU.

I like hot water. I like lashings and lashings of it to be available at all times of the day and night. I have a ridiculous job that frequently entails me leaving at 5.30 (and I have to leave showered because I can't face the day grubby) or arriving back ridiculously late and feeling grubby.

We can't have a combi boiler because of the size of the house. So I want to leave the hot water on all the time.

DH's response is to object on the grounds of cost. I offer to pay the bills. He says that's irrelevant because what's mine is his and vice versa. I don't disagree with him but it's ironic that he only uses this argument when it suits him. The au-pair, for instance, is most definitely mine.

So when I get particularly shrewish (generally after a Lack of Hot Water Episode) he swears by all that he holds holy to leave the hot water on all the time. Which is fine, until the next Lack of Hot Water Episode, when I discover he has been sneakily switching it off.

This has happened around once a year for the last seventeen years. Grounds for divorce? If yes, who is behaving unreasonably?

Actually, I think we have the storage system Tiggiwinkle describes. Our house isn't massive but the water has to cover three floors from the boiler.

this really is bollocks about the extra showers!!!
I can see only having one on each circuit but surely you can have a second one, in the bathroom, on a different circuit.
Deffo YABU to owant the immersion on all day! tis madness, and VERY bad for the planet (unless solar powered!)
I think this teeth sucking lark is what they do when they don't want the job, for some reason.

I thought that hotels all had gravity feed systems for their showers?

This is what I keep saying to DH: hotels can do it so why can't we?

Also to clarify - we also don't have immersion, but a hot water tank, and the boiler on a timer to come on. An hour or so is enough to heat quite a lot of water. Surely even if your shower use is unpredictable (and I'm not sure it can be completely so) then having the boiler on for a couple of hours several times a day should be ample, and much better than leaving it on 24/7?

Well all the Lack of Hot Water Episodes have been due to the timer.

In fairness to the boiler timer, I think we are totally useless with water use. For instance intensive power shower use. Those power showers are THIRSTY things. This is why despite having a hot water tank the size of the Titanic, we run out of hot water if we use the timer.

We have a combi boiler and hot water all the time (except in our bathroom where we have no hot water at all ), plus 2 electric showers.

You need a new electrician - would you like to borrow ours?

Is your tank not big enough perhaps? Can't think why else its not working, other than if you spend hours on end in the shower...

Orl righ' Orl righ'

I have shuffled up to DH and confessed shamefacedly that I had mumsnetted the cause of our marital discord and the (overwhelming) consensus was that I was being unreasonable.

A beatific smile spread upon his face.

You've made an old grump very happy.

For me, I think there is an upside. He now approves of Mumsnet.