Where can I find a hip bath?

October 5, 2010 12:20 PM

I'm seeking a bathtub for a plumbing-free location. Details within!

I'm going to be living in a cold water cabin for the foreseeable future. I have access to bathing facilities at the gym but would still love to have a bath at home once in a while. I've been searching high and low for a hip bath, like this guy is using. They seem to need less water to fill up than the wash tubs available as planters/for horses etc. and look much more comfortable. Sadly, I can only seem to find them in dollhouse miniature form! Where can I order an adult human-size hip bath to have shipped to the US?

posted by zem to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

not sure if you're specifically seeking a BATH, but when we were building the house, before plumbing, we used one of my big, commercial coffeepots (80 cup) in this way: fill it about halfway, to heat the water to full-heat, then fill the rest of the way with cold-from-the-garden-hose until a decent temperature. Place on something high but safe, (outdoors) flip up the dispenser tab and take a weak but warm shower. It was only water in it so it wasn't going to hurt the coffeemaker. It was a wonderful way to get clean compared to the alternative of a sponge-bath or a cold hose-trickle.

of course it needs electricity the way i did it, which you didn't imply that you wouldn't have.

Before we had electricity we used a camp shower, but it had to be sunny for a sufficiently warm shower. It wasn't always sunny :-(
posted by ChefJoAnna at 12:41 PM on October 5, 2010

I would love to know the answer to this! In the past we have used a large plastic rubermaid-type storage bin. My father sunk a cattle trough (with a home made screen covering to keep out debris and mosquitoes) where a natural spring drips and takes a (cold as hell) bath in it every couple of days. Something like that galvanized sitzbath would be fantastic!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:45 PM on October 5, 2010

I lived for over 20 years in an old farmhouse with just a pitcher pump to draw cold water from a spring. What I finally settled on was showering under a 5 gallon plastic drum with a spigot on it. In cold weather I heated water on my wood stove and during the summer I used a black jerry can left in the sun.

I showered outside and it was OK down to 10 F above zero as long as there wasn’t a hard wind blowing. When you’ve got warm water running over you cold air isn’t an issue. Once, during a nice snowstorm, I held the drum over my head with the water running over me and walked around in the snow. The snow felt like cat fur under my bare feet.
posted by Huplescat at 1:34 PM on October 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

A passive solar water heater can be built very inexpensively if you get sun and have water. Check out plastic storage bins for size. I got one to bathe a small child in that worked perfectly, and they're cheap and more comfortable than metal feed/water troughs.
posted by mareli at 2:15 PM on October 5, 2010

an ofuro might meet your needs.

here's one for $800. here's a diy concrete version.

in a pinch, i bet an inflatable boat/canoe on an insulated surface would do the trick.

mostly i needed to stop by cause this topic reminded me of the movie tampopo
posted by kimyo at 3:18 PM on October 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was just coming in to recommend a Japanese soaking tub. I saw one in a museum that was basically a tall wooden box approx 3' tall and just wide enough to sit down on a tiny stool with your knees drawn up close to your chest. There was some kind of outlet on the side down near the bottom to drain it afterwards.

Always wanted one.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 3:51 PM on October 5, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks for all the great suggestions! I should have specified that I'm living in a very small cold water cabin and have no space for a permanent set-up, though those ofuros make me wish I did. I ended up getting a 15 gallon duraflex round rubber feed tub. It's flexible so it's much more comfortable than metal tubs and is more insulated.
posted by zem at 7:14 AM on October 16, 2010