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Hot water bottles

I find it a little strange that someone wouldn't know what a hot water bottle is. Sign of the times I guess.
 
I find it a little strange that someone wouldn't know what a hot water bottle is. Sign of the times I guess.

Well, I've heard of those things before, and heard of them called "hot water bottles" but it's been so long since I've seen those before and heard of them they didn't instantly pop into my mind. How long can they even provide heat for?
 
I've never used a hot water bottle, I always had a good heating system or I just use an extra blanket.
But I remember that my grandmother used a hot brick to warm beds, that's what I call old fashioned ;)
 
I find it a little strange that someone wouldn't know what a hot water bottle is. Sign of the times I guess.

My mental image was an Evian bottle that happened to be filled with hot water, and I was wondering why someone would buy such a thing at a store---surely the water would be lukewarm at best by the time you got home!

Makes a little more sense now.

I find the idea of warming a bed with it interesting, but it still seems like the heat would fade pretty quickly....

Really, I just have my lady put the pan of hot coals under my sheets.

I grew up in a house that actually had one of those pans hanging by the fireplace. We never used it, though.
 
Same here, along with all of the other fireplace tools like the poker, a stoker, etc. But they were more ornamental than functional aside from the poker which was the only piece with a function when using the fireplace.
 
I always have the bedroom window open so it gets a bit nippy in there during our Nordic Winters™.

I once had one of those 'rubber' hot water bottles but it was made in China so of curse it leaked :sigh: then I started using 1½ l bottles (the plastic kind you buy soda in) -works perfectly but it's a lot of work so I accepted that I'm not a teenager any more and bought an electric blanket... the kind you put between yourself and the mattress; bed heaters I think they call them, ½ an hour with that on half to full power and my entire bed (mattress AND duvet AND pillow) is hot and ready for me to come to bed :)

Oh, and central heating around here means you have a pipe supplying the house with hot water from some centralised system (the local power plant supplies a lot of heat to the system).

ETA: Yes, the heat from a couple of liters boiling water doesn't last for very long... just long enough for the bed to be warmed for your comfort ;)
 
I take it to refer to either.
Thanks. Here we call it "centralized heating" when it's a single system for the whole building, and "autonomous heating" when there is a heating system for each apartment. Without any of them, it's simply "without heating". Thus my confusion.

In a UK residential context it generally means radiators in each room connected to a (typically gas-fired) boiler in the house which heats water under thermostatic control (often also with a programmable timer) and in a closed loop. The water is circulated by a pump, heating all the rooms which have the radiators installed. Typically, each radiator also has its own individual thermostatic control valve, making the overall system very easily controlled, very flexible, and quite efficient.

Certainly, its miles ahead of the main competing system of room heating through fixed heaters, which is electric storage. Generally, you tend to only find electric storage heaters in older properties these days, especially older cheaper rental properties where there's little incentive to spend the money to upgrade to central heating.
 
I take it to refer to either.
Thanks. Here we call it "centralized heating" when it's a single system for the whole building, and "autonomous heating" when there is a heating system for each apartment. Without any of them, it's simply "without heating". Thus my confusion.
In a UK residential context it generally means radiators in each room connected to a (typically gas-fired) boiler in the house which heats water under thermostatic control (often also with a programmable timer) and in a closed loop. The water is circulated by a pump, heating all the rooms which have the radiators installed. Typically, each radiator also has its own individual thermostatic control valve, making the overall system very easily controlled, very flexible, and quite efficient.
In Italy it works almost universally in the same way, the difference is that newer buildings have autonomous heating (1 small boiler for every apartment) while older buildings have centralized heating (1 large boiler for the whole building).

Automonous heating is slightly more expensive for gas (usually methane) consumption but allows for finer control of temperature, while centralized heating is somehow cheaper (but you can control only the thermostatic valves on your radiators, the central boiler unit temperature is fixed).

And of course you have places in Southern Italy when you don't need heating at all, since the temperature rarely drops under 15 °C even in the middle of winter...
 
I've got a hot water bottle. But nothing I've got'll take the place of you holding me tight.

(Hey, somebody had to, so it might as well be me.) :p

I find it a little strange that someone wouldn't know what a hot water bottle is. Sign of the times I guess.
How many people nowadays know what flypaper is? Or a wringer washing machine?
 
I thought it was a washing machine you least suspected that could kick ass inside the Octagon.
 
I am old. I have used a wringer washing machine. That was followed by twin tubs.

I have also used a pedal Singer sewing machine. My mother used one until I was about 10 years old and then she got an electric sewing machine.
 
My great-grandma once told us that in her day, they had no rocks. They had to hit people with wet clothes while doing laundry.
 
I am old. I have used a wringer washing machine. That was followed by twin tubs.

I fucking hate twin tubs. It was like getting slapped in the face reading those words, :lol:

I know people in the bush still using wringers and twin tubs. And kero fridges.

You want old, my old house had a gravity header tank on the roof for hot water. I remember googleing how to fix it. Googleing it now I find a lot of ones that look a lot more modern than what I had which was basically an open metal box. These may still be common in Tasmania if you don't have gas.
 
I don't think I have ever seen a gravity header tank.

For hot water most Tasmanian homes just have an electrical hot water cylinder.

One of my friends recently bought a new washing machine. When she told me she had bought a twin tub I said "WTF I didn't realise you could still buy them". Like you, I hated twin tubs and I cannot understand why anyone would buy a new one in this day and age.

I have used kero heaters but not in the last 30 years. I have never seen a kero fridge.

Edited to add - when my family moved to a larger house in 1965, there was a copper to wash in. Mum used it until they could afford to buy an automatic washing machine, Mum said she would prefer to keep using the copper rather than buy a twin tub.
 
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