How to Shower When Your Water Heater is Broken

How to Shower When Your Water Heater is Broken

aka How to Appreciate Modern Plumbing & Hot Water More
aka First World Problems

My water heater recently broke.  The hubby said the pilot light wouldn't light and all that.  Most of it went over my head.  All I knew was there wasn't hot water for my shower, and it was winter.  As for me, my skin and scalp in less than 24 hours get as greasy as a bacon pan, so I need my shower every day.

Desperate and unwilling to take a shower in the frigid waters of the Arctic, I did the following:

1) I took my largest pot and filled it with water.  I lugged it to my stove and brought it to a boil.  Took awhile.  It was a large pot of cold water, so its understandable.

2) I filled my tub with about two inches of cold water.  I dumped about a quarter of the hot water in, so it would be tolerable to sit in the tub.

3) I used a pitcher of water to pour the hot water on myself.  I would mix it with the cold water from the bottom of the tub at first because the water was so hot.  Later, it cooled enough.

3.5) My husband had the absolutely BRILLIANT idea of pulling the room heater into the bathroom.  He turned it on high, and because the bathroom is such a small room, the room heated up in a few minutes.

4) Washed my hair twice, conditioned it, washed my body, and washed my face.  Felt a little exotic, like bathing underneath a warm tropical waterfall.  Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration due to the fact that I was relishing in the hot water.  (And note: it had only been 36 hours since my last hot shower.)

5) I had a third of the pot left at the end of the day to just pour over my face and body and indulge!

So, that is how I did it, for anyone who was wondering.  And for those who are thinking this is "TMI" for you, my apologies for making you feel awkward.

Funny how taking one "simple" thing away as a hot water heater made me that much more thankful for hot water.  And funny how living for 48 hours without a water heater can cause such a disruption in my life when people across the world don't even get clean water on a daily basis, much less clean hot water to shower in.

According to the first link on a quick Google search, the average shower head is using 2.5 gallons of water per minute.  So a 10-minute shower uses 25 gallons of water.  And I just used less than probably three gallons to wash myself this way.

I'm not here to bash the wastefulness of America or harp on our society's water usage.  I'm just concentrating on thankfulness.  48-hours and a new water heater later (Yay for my hubby, my water heater hero), I can say that I have a new appreciation for my hot showers.

And just to be super appreciative of this piece of technology, here is a picture of our new water heater.  Ta da!

And if you also from FWP, check out this video to help you here!