Growing Up Without Combi Boilers

For thousands of years, whoever wanted to take a hot bath –once or twice a year–, had to do it to their own risk (as people believed it was very dangerous).Surprisingly, our ancestors managed to stay fairly clean by regular sponge-bathing and occasionally swimming in rivers or oceans.

Filling up a tub with hot water took them a long  time, as they had to heat big copper pots over the kitchen stove or open fire. Probably they used the same water for different family members.

I still remember the days without combi boilers. We definitely didn´t have a combi boiler when I grew up. My mom used to pour a couple of big pots of boiling water into the bathtub. She would run the cold tap water until the temperature was just perfect for me to jump in the tub.   We did not have gas central heating  either.  In cold days, my dad would make sure to keep the bathroom warm while I was having a bath. He placed a little metal bowl on the tiled floor, filled it with alcohol, light it, and let it burn for awhile.  Taking a bath –in those days– was a big operation that could take more than two hours, considering the pre-heating of water and bathroom.  This must have been one of the reasons why I only took a bath on Saturday evenings, beside being nice and clean for Sunday Mass.

Mom would wash my hair with regular soap. Sometimes she would give me a second wash with one raw egg or beer, which was supposed to strengthen my hair.  She would put some vinegar in the rinsing water (to avoid leaving  traces of soap on my hair) and scoop it over my head.  I remember I didn’t like that part, because I had to stand up from my nice warm bath in order to get all rinsed up and sometimes the vinegar would get into my eyes and cause discomfort.  We definitely did not have a high pressure shower head, so i had to be rinsed off with a scooper. I had to get out of the tall tub and step down unto the towel laid on the floor.  I appreciated very much that my dad had previously heated the bathroom with  burning alcohol. The days he didn’t, I shivered and my mom would wrap me up in towels and shove me inside the bed with a hot water bottle to keep me warm. They were very concerned that I would not catch pneumonia. I was also their only child.

Now,  married and with my own children, I have the convenience of a combi boiler that produces hot water on demand whenever I need it, and also keeps my house nicely warm all day long.