
The slow clean: the role of baths in twentieth-century literature - prismatic
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/the-slow-clean-baths/
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sideshowb
We are increasingly encouraged to take showers for environmental reasons (less
water and less heating) but I don't find them at all relaxing like a bath.
This leads me to ponder environmental alternatives. I don't know which has the
greater energy cost, purifying bath water and piping it to and from my house,
or heating it, but on the financial front I was surprised to calculate that
the water itself costs more than the heating.

Hot tubs have the advantage of not continuously requiring more water, but
disadvantage of needing continuous heat. It seems pretty daft to me given the
upfront cost of a tub that the default is to heat them electrically, surely
heat pumps would be a better option, or even just plumbing them into the house
radiator system? Either way, though nice to have, still they're likely to be
even less eco friendly then a bath. (I'm excluding wood fired options here for
lack of convenience plus the fact that they are usually refilled each use).

Saunas, with little water to heat, are presumably much more efficient, and
even have some medically proven health benefits. For me they don't quite beat
soaking in water but they're a close second.

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dasmoth
Shower flow rates are somewhere of the order of 10L/min -- potentially rather
more if you're talking about power showers -- so the showers-are-more-
efficient-than-baths thing is only really clear cut if you take relatively
brief showers. I think some of the comparisons I've seen in the past have
pointed to _2 minute_ showers, which seems pretty rushed, especially if you
have hair to wash.

If you have a family, can you share a bath (taking turns)? That's a
substantial and fairly easily-achieved saving.

If you've got a garden, adding a gray-water collection system also makes
things that little bit less wasteful, at least in the summer (but I suppose
that would also work with a shower too...)

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bilbo0s
>* I think some of the comparisons I've seen in the past have pointed to 2
minute showers*

Wait?

Wouldn't that mean that you bathe in 20L of water? I know it's only the
eyeball test, but most of the bath tubs I've seen seem to be filled with more
than 20L when in use. Particularly if people are soaking, which would be a
fair comparison to a long shower.

I think maybe we need some kind of way to recycle water for more than one
night, and reheat it efficiently. Then baths start being better for the
environment.

I have no idea how to do that? (Or even if you can do that?) But it seems a
good way forward if some company made tubs like that.

~~~
dasmoth
Sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant that most people I know seem to shower for
>>2 minutes, so I doubted the credibility of the comparison.

Clearly, if you are fairly consistently sticking to 2-minutes showers, that's
going to be more economical than baths -- even with some degree of sharing.

