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+--- Thread: ufuros - old style (/showthread.php?tid=6781)
ufuros - old style - Rob Tucker - 01-25-2010
On a post in Non-classifieds Oink asked:
I would however be interested in the construction and heating method of the old furo. I have fond memories of using one at my ex-in-laws house on Maui but I don't quite recall its construction. I think it was a wood box on plate steel heated by a wood fire from the outside. O assume some stone or masonry created a fire box and chimney of some sort. I'm thinking I would like to construct such an arrangement as an outbuilding when the time comes. Would you mind providing a description.
Most of the old style ufuros I have seen are indoors and consist of a copper bottomed wooden tank - usually made of old growth redwood which is placed directly over a concrete fire box. On the top side of the copper was a wooden slatted floor to keep one's body from contact with the copper.
The rather small firebox loads and fires from outside the building. It does not take a big fire to heat an ufuro. The chimneys are usually made of 4" cast iron pipe with a clean out at the bottom. The cast iron is cast into the upper side of the firebox and extends above the roof on the outside of the building.
There is absolutely nothing legal about this in current codes. The risk of burning down the whole affair is high unless fired and maintained with care. Our older generations were quite skilled with small fires and probably had little trouble with this.
These ufuros were often part of a bath house - Japanese style - in which one would wash with a bucket and sponge outside the ufuro and use the tank for a relaxing soak.
I tried mine out once and it was nice except that the ufuro tank was so small for a western body that you had to be in a fetal position. So I am now working on a concrete hot tub which will be heated by a heat exchanger tied into the gas fired hot water heater...
RE: ufuros - old style - JerryCarr - 01-25-2010
Our 1993 house was built by a Japanese contractor for a Japanese client and has what we call a "modern" ufuro in the master suite. There is a sort of vertical redwood soaking tub in a redwood lined subroom of the bathroom. It has a slatted redwood floor and square vertical redwood bars over the window above the tub. No fire box whatsoever, though, just a hot water tap from the regular household system.
The other bathroom in the house is thoroughly modern American.
Cheers,
Jerry
RE: ufuros - old style - oink - 01-25-2010
Thanks Rob,
That sounds very much like what I remember although I recall it as being a bit bigger. It was a separate outbuilding. You were expected to wash first, sponge bath style with small pails with wood handles dipped from the furo, before getting in. The drain was to the bannana patch. Their house had running water but no running hot water. The bath house was where you bathed. It was in upcountry Maui and the air tended to be chilly in the evening which made the furo even nicer. The bottom could have been copper. I jsut assumed it was steel or iron. Being a small outbuilding the fire hazard issue would not be so great. Obviously, I would like to have modern plumbing and shower inside the main house. I just found the wood fired furo in the wood frame outbuilding enjoyable. It might prove to much trouble but I would like to try it. I would probably need a closer look or the assistance of someone knowledgable to be able to get the fire box to work correctly.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
RE: ufuros - old style - Rob Tucker - 01-25-2010
I operated a cooperage in New England years ago and produce hundreds of water tanks. The ufuro itself is a small affair and all that I have seen were made from 24" wide old growth redwood - which is an excellent water resistant wood. Unfortunately redwood of that grade and width is rather unavailable commercially now. Cypress and White Oak are also good tank woods but hard to get in Hawaii.
As a former tank builder I don't know of an easily available wood suitable for water tanks anymore. Maybe something from Indonesia like Teak but Teak is so waxy I am not sure of it's capacity to swell properly.
RE: ufuros - old style - Carey - 01-25-2010
Our next door neighbor has 2 furos... an older ('50's) cube shaped furo in the basement of the house that is redwood slat, with marine plywood outer walls with a metal bottom - it has a slot underneath for a coal pan (much like the old coal pans for bed up north). The wood base was removed almost a decade ago & it is not used today. It also has hot & cold water plumbing & a drain. Our Neighbor remembers her Japanese born mother always checking the children's feet with her thumbnail to make sure they had cleaned well (there was only one filling & the family all used the furo to soak, starting with her father & going down to the youngest).
Her father built a newer concrete block furo in the late 80's in an outdoor bathhouse in his work 'shed' (larger than their house), but never finished it. It has copper pipes running in the block... It looks almost like he was planning on using a water boiler to heat the pipes to heat the furo... Since the bath house was never finished, it is hard to tell exactly how he planed to heat it, or what all of the copper pipes were for.
RE: ufuros - old style - oink - 01-25-2010
I did find this link: http://www.cedartubs.com/ofuro.html
It's not exactly what I had in mind but it might be the reasonable substitute.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
RE: ufuros - old style - Carey - 01-25-2010
There was a store on Kalanianaole (just across from the Ice Pond) that had more modern furos.... some with very sleek lines... but they closed a while ago....do not know if anyone else is carrying the furos, but maybe Millies or another of the shops there may have owner info you could use to find out...
RE: ufuros - old style - Kelena - 01-25-2010
Paradise Plants has (or had) a furo.
RE: ufuros - old style - Devany - 01-25-2010
We have friends that live in Waipio and have a bath house with one of those. I never knew what it was called.
Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany
www.myhawaiianhome.blogspot.com
www.eastbaypotters.blogspot.com
RE: ufuros - old style - oink - 01-25-2010
Rob, do you know how the rectangular ones are put together? Tounge and groove? Corners? How is the box attached to the sheet of copper?
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.