I believe the water heater was invented around the mid 1800’s…..So what did people do before that? I suppose they were just dirty. Or, they heated their water on their wood stoves and took baths like us.
Well, for the last 6 years that is what we have been doing. We call them bucket baths. It wasn’t our original plan.
When we bought our farm in the woods all the water lines had been disconnected. There was no well on the property and we were 35+ minutes to the nearest “city” for city water. We had just moved in and it was winter and we had no water to the house.
The first 6 weeks we carried buckets of rainwater into the house for bathing, washing dishes and flushing toilets.
During this time we hunted for clues on what the past owner did for running water. There were two large water tanks up the hill behind the house, but no water lines going into them. Did they use the spring, the creek or both?? In the end we ran lines from the spring into the two large water holding tanks that thankfully were already plumbed to the house.
We now had gravity fed cold water in the house! We heated water on the kitchen stove and used this to wash dishes and to take bucket baths. In the winter time there was always a large pot or two on the wood stove ready for use.
That first summer we replaced our roof with a metal one and added rainwater collection to our water storage. This time we plumbed an old fashioned style hand pump into the kitchen to bring the rain water inside.
The grandkids loved taking turns pumping the water! And…my hair loved being washed with rainwater, it grew fast like wild weeds!
We talked occasionally of putting in a water heater, but we had grown use to this lifestyle. It wasn’t that hard. We kept a 5 gallon bucket in the bathroom to fill with warm water from the stove at bath time. Then you just took a large cup and doused yourself with warm water, soaped up, then rinsed off. That easy. Kind of like 1800’s or before.
One other reason we decided against the “water heater” was missions. We knew someday we were going to go into some type of fulltime ministry, somewhere, and we wanted to be ready for any environment.
During these 6 years we have learned not take things for granted. Don’t waste water, wood, food, and time.
The farm is on the market now, and to make it more sellable we added a propane water heater. Has it been nice having hot showers? or instant hot water for dishes? It has been a treat. But, I know that I will truly miss the old ways that I have grown to love.
