Friday Night Bath

One of the great simple pleasures of my life for the last 14 years has been a nightly bath outdoors during warmer weather. This came to a temporary end when I disassembled my bath while preparing to move out of the city. In fact, the bath was the first thing I dismantled when I got started.

Over the course of the last two weeks, I've been putting some effort into getting the solar water heater and tub set up here at the new property.

Here's a photo from last week, when I had to get inventive to move the cast-iron tub from one side of the yard to the other without any assistance. That's my hand truck on the bottom, with it's carrying capacity extended using some 2x4 and drywall screw technology. After the tub was put in place on some cinder blocks, I used the same rig to move the 4x8 foot solar direct water heating panel to the other side of the yard as well.

Tonight it's time to put it all to use. The flat plate solar water heater took a tub full of 52 degree water up to 94 degrees in partly cloudy conditions. After that, I engaged the backup heat source, wood. Anyone care for a cup of shark soup?

You can see the flat plate heater and it's newly fabricated stand in the background.

The corrugated iron surround keeps the heat in when heating with solar, and makes a fine furnace enclosure when I have to fall back to wood to compete the heating process. The chimney is a sheet of roofing that's been rolled into a "U", and closed with a flat sheet of roofing. The whole thing is put together with sheet metal screws.

The overflow and faucet holes in the tub have been sealed up, so that it can be filled completely up. When I get into it, the water comes all the way up to the rim. It's great not having to worry about splashing or spilling water, and watching the stars and sky while bathing is awe inspiring.

There's still a lot of work to do, I'll surround the tub with a fence to keep away fighting/screwing racoons and the assorted bears and cougar wildlife we have here. The fence will also provide a place for the towel and clothes pegs. I'll also have to build a decent side table for the tub to support the kerosene lamp and assorted drinking water bottles, digital thermometer, matches, etc.

The slab alongside the tub is something the previous owners left behind, it's some kind of flooring material, 40x48" in size, and it's made of concrete with agate and shiny stones on the surface. It's cracked in several places, but for my purposes, it works just fine.

Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have a date with a tub of 106 degree hot water....