01-25-2010, 07:14 AM
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.
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.