View Full Version : No hot water: not exactly an emergency, but still...
I discovered when I went to take my shower this morning that I had no hot water. I did have cold, however. My condo is an end unit, and I thought that maybe a pipe had frozen since it's been dangerously cold.
In any case, I needed to at least wash my hair before work (short hair means bed head) and do a sketchy wash. I got creative. I heated a saucepan of water on the stove and one kettle full from my electric kettle. I poured the very hot water into a plastic dishpan in the bathtub, and washed my hair using a plastic cup to rinse. I ended up being a bit late to work, but not very much.
It turns out the hot water shutoff valve on the water heater needs to be fully replaced. No frozen pipe, the valve just decided NOW to quit. Landlord will have a plumber out tomorrow morning to fix it.
That means an evening and a second morning without hot water. It's not too big of a deal, actually. I can't use the dishwasher, but I had used the dishwasher two nights ago and had a small amount of dirty dishes. Laundry was caught up, and I always wash in cold. I heated a bunch of hot water on the stove tonight: 6 qt pot, 3 qt pot, and electric kettle. I filled/heated up each twice. Had a huge stainless steel bowl as well as dishpan. I had a very nice old-fashioned wash standing in the tub tonight. I used a plastic pitcher to pour water all over me. The hot water was delightful as it's so cold out. I had enough unused hot water leftover to do my few dishes. In the morning, I'll just heat up a bit of water to wash my hair, and hopefully the hot water will be back on when I get home from work tomorrow.
A side note: I'm the furthest thing from being "green," but it really is amazing how little water you need to get clean. I love soaking in the tub with a book, but it's good to know another way. This is how people did it 100+ years ago (and poor rural families probably did until the 1950s or so).
During Hurricane Sandy when we lost power I "showered" in a similar way. Just some hot and cold water, stood in the shower, soaped up and rinsed. It wasn't difficult at all. Washing hair in a sink isn't a big deal either; I had long hair then, but now with short hair, it would be even easier.
In a way I kinda enjoyed roughing it for four days. Any longer, it would stop being fun.
Oh yes that sounds familiar. A couple times i have had hot water heaters wear out on me. you never get any notice do you? i went to the gym for showers but could have tried what you did. especially since my dad raised us with 5 minute shower limits. a lot of bathing is about comfort.
i also do 'camping dishes' i have to use warm or hot water due to a circulation issue but it works fine, i wouldn't have a dishwasher if i was the only one here honestly. just heat water in the largest pan you have (dirty is great), add soap and wash out of that pan.
great job being resourceful
No hot water? Just post something on this forum that whats-her-face doesn't like; you'll be in plenty of hot water! Ha. Just trying to be funny. Well, isn't it? A couple years ago, I noticed my water heater was running all the time, in the summer. An inspection revealed a puddle next to the foundation, outside. My girl Huskee was drinking out of it. A check under the house revealed a massive leak in a pipe, going to the tub/shower, waaay back under there in the 2' high crawl space. I had to defer repairing it for a little while, so I shut down the hot water & heater altogether. But, in the meantime, I went out to the dog room in a separate garage, that has a dog tub made out of a stock tank, with a flexible shower head and it's own water heater, and showered there. When I got time, I went under the house with a sawzall, removed all of the 50-year old iron pipe, and redid everything with PEX tubing with brass fttings. It is better to work with in confined spaces than that PVC and the Glue! When I fired up the water heater again, it started leaking from the tank. I looked on Craigslist, and there was a party on the south-side selling a 40-gallon water heater, 9 years old, for $75. I'da gone for brand-new, but was short of cash. They had replaced their heater with a bigger one, with faster recovery, due to having 6 people in their household, including a teenage girl. Their installer suggested they sell it on CL, since it was very clean and worked fine. Got it in(2 years ago), and hopefully, it will last Me several more years. Wish mee luck.
We "save" water (water that runs cold in the shower before it gets warm enough to shower) and store it in 3-gallon jugs and use if for may purposes, but mostly for doing dishes. We use approximately 1-gallon of water for the task of after meal clean-up and dishes that don't go into the dishwasher (which we run once a week) and heat 5-cups of water in our electric kettle (doesn't have to be boiling, just hot) and add about 5-more cups of room temperature water, and use the remainder of the 1-gallon to rinse the dishes. This method also saves on soap - it takes about 1/8-1/4 t. for the job. We place a small plastic tub (or a large plastic/stainless steel bowl would also work) in the sink for this purpose - otherwise this small amount of water would get "lost" in the sink. Sinks typically hold 5-8 gallons of water.
My family didn't have a hot water heater when I was a child (early 1950's), which wasn't all that uncommon here in the middle of "nowhere". We had a galvanized wash tub mom would put in the sun outside and filled with water to heat the water to use it for doing laundry in a wringer washer. She had a large canner she heated water on the stove. I remember her boiling cloth diapers to sanitize them. We also took a bath in the galvanized wash tub. We only took a tub bath once a week, but we always took a spit bath (entire body, except hair) before going to bed each night.
You can actually shower and wash your hair (especially short hair) in as little as 1-gallon of water. We painted empty gallon bleach bottles black and set them outside in the sun to heat the water and you can make a mini-shower out of them. You can find the information in the book "Roughing It Easy" by Dian Thomas. We now use a 5-gallon camp shower for this task and have a special place to hang it in the master bath shower, and 4-gallons is more than enough for two adults. If you can't heat the camp shower in the sun during the day, you can heat the water some other way and mix it with cold water in the camp shower. But there are some very good emergency methods.
I would also resort to using paper plates/bowls for a short term lack of hot water emergency. This is all stuff included in our 72-hour emergency kit.
Our hot water heater is dying, it may only need an element cleaned or replaced but we're not getting as much hot water. Finally......the boys are taking short showers!! I may just leave the water heater alone except I'm getting grumpy with having the hot water run out after 3 minutes.
awakenedsoul
1-9-15, 10:42am
I was without any water for a few days last week. I had a frozen pipe outside. Fortunately I had some emergency water stored in my closet. I used that up quickly. My neighbors let me come and refill my bottles with their hose.
Like the OP, I was heating up water on my stove for dishes. I went to the gym to shower. It sure is a relief to have the plumbing fixed again.
I used to put a large plant watering can on the stove to heat water to wash my hair when the hot water went out in my apartment in NYC. Since moving from there I no longer have the watering can (it was a freebie from HGTV and the handle collapsed) and I've also never not had hot water in any of the places we've lived since then.
If I woke up to no hot water here I'd probably just go to work dirty. As a guy with buzzed hair probably no one would notice.
I have washed my hair and done a quick sponge bath in an ice cold mountain stream when I use to lead 7 day backpacking trips in Colorado. Talk about an instant headache. I love my hot water. I've been after my husband for 6 years to empty out and clean the hotwater heater. Our hard water can build up scale on the elements, a simple cleaning out every year can prevent the elements from burning out.....which is what has now happened.
Funny, my hot water tank is slowly going on the fritz too! Nothing is more disappointing than looking forward to a nice hot shower on these absolutely frigid nights and getting a weak three minute lukewarm trickle...luckily all I have to do is call maintenance where I live and they will come and check it out (but they didn't get to it today). I really needed to wash my dreadlocks so I had to do it lickity-split. No lingering and wasting water here anymore!
When I go on my road trips I have gone as long as five days with no bath or shower. I don't really mind it at all, it's kind of freeing in a way. After awhile though I feel like I am getting offensive to be around so I heat up water on the camp stove and wash myself down with soap and a wash cloth. I have washed my head in a bucket as well and it works out just fine. I think roughing it like that makes me appreciate having such nice hot running water at home all that much more.
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