Reusing bathwater

[Westside1]

Just read on a money saving post how family of 4 reuse same bathwater each night, saving a fortune in the process.

6 & 3 year old gets bathed first, then mum heats it up for her bath and finally dad (as he is the dirtiest or so they say) adds hot water and has a scrub.

Omg, AIBU or is the the most gross thing ever.

I grew up in the 70s sharing a bath with 2 siblings. Not one after the other - just all in together.

Yes, that’s right. I grew up prior to the 70’s and spent a few stints in hospital as a child. I remember there was one big bath and they used to get every kid from each room on the ward in it together. So we all had to scooch up to fit 6 of us in. Complete strangers to each other really but it was seen as very normal.

I don’t think that people realise having a shower in the house was a normal thing until the 70’s and even then you had most people who were not used to it, had not grown up with that routine, just stick to the usual. So even when my grandparents got a house with a shower in the 70’s they just used it once a week.

I remember at uni in student digs the bathroom and toilet was generally outside in an outhouse type thing. Okay in summer, not so much in winter. Lots of us lived together and the hot water ran out super quick. We were often unwashed. No one died or got any skin complaint.

I imagine the bucket wash thing is fine in warm months, but in winter, in an unheated bathroom, if that's the only other option I'd rather reuse bathwater than end up shivering and cold.

Nothing gross about it. We did this when I was a child in the 70s and 80s. Me, mum, then my grandmother, then my grandmother would use the water to water the garden.

It does actually save money, although it's a bit of a moot point if you live in a flat in the UK without a water meter (and therefore get charged a flat rate no matter how much water you use).

I think the clue to it be o.k in my eyes is "each night"

I presume 90% of their body is covered by clothing for approx 12 hours of the day, so really the hands & face (apart from masks) are the only thing to have been touched by the outside world.

Can't see much of a problem unless they all have D&V

We didn't have a bathroom in our house (and I'm only late 50s). We had a tin bath in front of the fire. Us girls in first, mum next then dad. Hot water had to be carried from the hob (or stove as it was called then) and emptying it was a two person job to carry it to the garden and dump the water. So filling/emptying just wasn't going to be done for the four of us.

On Friday night we went to my nan's for fish and chips and a 'proper' bath as she had one. I remember it was a real luxury as she had lovely smelling bubble bath.

Then, early 70's we moved to a house with a bathroom. Baths on our own (yippee).

Then came the summer of 1976 with the drought and standpipes at the end of the road. Water was often switched off with warning so you could fill a few buckets/kettles etc for drinks and food prep. Baths had to be 1 or 2 inches in depth and you were encouraged to share. Then the water was scooped out and used on the garden or to fill the cistern so you could flush the loo with dirty water rather than use the precious fresh stuff.

We do it sometimes, no point wasting the kids hot water so one of us will jump in after.

All 3 of my kids bath together as they are really young and they like to play. I make up for that water savings by taking long & luxurious showers

We did it as children and still do it now. We all bath or shower daily, sometimes twice daily so sharing the water is normal. You do know that soap is one of the best antibacterials and it’s good at deactivating viruses.
DS prefers showers so doesn’t use bath water as frequently. Like most teenagers he probably uses twice as much water as a bath.
DH and I share, he’s a bit obsessive about personal hygiene so I’ve never really worried about it. With a double ended bath we have been known to jump in together!
Communal bathing was the norm until recent years. I’m not really sure why you would balk at sharing a bath with someone you share a bed with.

Until I was about 8, we didn't have a house with a bathroom so we all shared a tin bath in the kitchen!!!! As the youngest, I had my bath first, then my brother, then my mother and finally my father.
I can still remember the humiliation of getting in and having forgotten to take my socks off!!!

It's very rare in this house that a bath is only used by one person. The family is made up of me, DH DS1(15) and DS2(13).

I always get the first bath (its the law and I like the bath water really hot) and then one of the others inevitably jumps in afterwards.

Its not grim/gross and we are not trying to save money. Obviously if the person who has the first bath is really dirty it wouldn't get reused. Four people is extreme though, we would only have two people using the same water.

I suspect a lot of the people clutching their pearls have combi boilers with limitless hot water.

I think combi boilers and 'instant' hot water systems make it less needed to do this. My house still has an old boiler and hot water tank - you get one bath out of the tank and that's your lot!

I remember it was a big deal in the 80s when my grandparents got an electic heated shower fitted - the luxury! Prior to that it was one of those dual tap hose things, which either were boiling hot, freezing cold, a trickle or so powerful they'd ping off the taps.

I remember when I was in a student flat share, one of the guys used to re-use his bathwater to clean his vintage punk band Tshirts.

This is common in many countries ,not least as to save water! As a child in the 70s ,I would regularly go in DM bath when she had finished ,Didnt think anything of it! Can drain a little away ,and refresh from the hot tap or boil a kettle (obv adding with care so as not to get burnt!) Back then wouldnt have a bath every day anyway .More like once or twice a week with a "stripwash" in between .(Stand at sink and wash bits one at a time!) Not too odd really!

My house still has an old boiler and hot water tank - you get one bath out of the tank and that's your lot!

Mine too. And to get the tank of hot water in the first place the furnace has to have been running for about 6 hours.

I went to stay with a friend for the weekend once (in my teens) where I was invited to get into the bath after her two younger brothers. I'll admit to feeling disgusted. I think it's fine if it's part of your family culture, but a step too far to enforce it on friends.

Also, I wouldn't trust DS2 to not have weed in the water before I got in! I'd rather limit everyone's showers to

I used to have to use the bathwater after my sister had had her bath, and Inhated it. She got the water when it was clean and hot, and I got it when it was grubby and had cooled off. And, as I was the person who emptied the bath, I was expected to leave it clean, for my parents, and hang up the towels and bath mat to dry.

I thought this was really unfair - but at least when my sister was little, I got to stay up later than her, so felt that was a bit of a benefit to me. But when we were both in our teens, and had the same bedtime, I asked mum if dsis and I could take turns at having the first bath - we had baths on Sunday and this seemed entirely fair to me - but mum refused point blank. Dsis was the golden child, and I don’t think mum wanted to take it away from her - plus, mum and dad shared bath water too, and mum always went first, so I think that, if she had accepted that it was not fair for dsis to always go first, she might have had to accept she shouldn’t always go first too.

I hated the thought that when dsis was on her period, I had to share her bath water.

I’ll jump in after my child, and my DH will jump in after me - our bath is noisy and next door to our son’s room, we don’t want to wake him up running 2 extra baths when there’s perfectly good water sitting right there. It’d be a waste to just let it run away without using it as much as we could.

Curious aboutSamphire There are 4 million villages in UK off the mains gas network! My PIL lived in a little village here in Dorset about 20 miles from Bournemouth .No mains gas there! All Electric only, and If they had a power cut had to use Calor Gas Canister for heating Soup or Coffee!

Dottie... I was taking the piss. That's what the 2 smiley faces under it are for.

I lived in just such places for most of my life. Our new house (new to us, loads of people have lived in it before) has mains gas, actual mains sewerage and broadband as well as a shower.

Never had all of those in on home before in my life! I am mid 50s. And this time I am not kidding! Really!

You do what you've got to do.
When I was a kid we had a little bathtub mum would put in front of the fire, she'd boil a couple of pans of water and that was bathtime. And yes, me and my sister shared the water.

When we got older and had central heating and all that (no more icicles on the inside of the bedroom windows, Yay!) We still shared the same bathwater. Dad would go last because he worked at the pit and was bloody filthy!

You couldn't get more than one bath out of a tank of hot water fed from the back boiler!

Young people have no idea what life was like only a few decades ago.

Oh wow. I must sound 1000 😂

Me and dh share if want a soak. We both have had showers that morning so not dirty or smelly.

🤮🤮🤮

All this talk or back boilers, tin baths in the back kitchen, icicles on the inside of the windows, no separate kitchen and/or bathroom is making me all nostalgic.

I'm 55 years old, have lived in large cities, small hamlet's and all sizes of village and town in between. Yet if I sat down and described the bathing arrangements of the perfectly normal houses I've lived in I'm sure some would wonder if I had a time machine.

Yet there are so many here with similar memories 😃

CuriousaboutSamphire Oh sorry .see what you mean! I was just surprised that 4m people without mains gas is all .When FIL told me no gas in his village ,I thought he was having me on! Obviously why so many garages out in the sticks have large supplies of Calor Gas then!

I think it's awful. My step dad used to make me do this. But he would have the bath first then I would have to get in. I just used to pretend I got in but sat on the toilet for 10 mins. Whenever I said I was having a bath he would say he's getting one first. I have other stories to tell if his weird behaviour. But this one makes me feel sick when I think about it and remembering the bath water and the smell.