Plumbing

When we bought the house it came with a brand new studio apartment that had never been used.  We are now finding out that several things didn't work.  We have had to order a new stove top because the original one had a cord that was put together with electrical tape and never could get it to work. We have also had the air conditioning rewired so that it was safe and operable from inside the apartment. Now it's plumbing.

We have had several guests use the shower in the apartment. None of them ever mentioned that there was no hot water in the shower. The fixture is European and has lots of knobs and buttons for operation.  We just chalked it up to not knowing how to work the fixture. It seemed like it was just an "operator error" issue.  

Nevertheless, we called the plumber.  He figured out that the fixture had an internal problem.  He replaced the fixture. We now have hot water in the shower. 

Our second issue, has been going on for two years. Okay, before you get all "why didn't we fix it earlier" on us....we weren't really sure how Dutch toilets are supposed to work.  I know it's a weak excuse but it's all I got.

All the toilet mechanical stuff is hidden behind a tiled wall in the master bathroom.  The flush pad hides the hole.  The plumber reaches his hand into the black hole and pulls out pieces and parts as he looks for the issue (the issue is it wouldn't refill very fast). He quickly found that the water refill pipe was blocked.  He dug out some caulk from a couple pieces, gave it a blow (his mouth on the pipe fixture), and solved the problem.