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Sharkey
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Ewww, 'Possums

Post by Sharkey »

It may not be common knowledge that I have a solar heated hot tub that I spend many hours soaking in each summer. Usually, by this time of year, the solar collector is providing enough heat to begin the tubbing season. For those marginal solar days, I have a back-up heat source, wood.

My tub, you see, is an old cast iron clawfoot bath tub. In order to use the alternate heat source, I've surrounded its exterior with old corrugated tin roofing and provided a chimney at the head end. An opening at the foot allows me to build a nice hot fire, thereby directly heating the contents of the tub. A really hot fire will raise the water about a degree a minute. The side benefit is that I dispose of a lot of branches, trimmings and scrap wood in this manner.

Last Sunday, the solar panel finally brought the water up to bathing temperature. Since I've been busy with real estate stuff, I haven't bothered to light a fire. Good thing.

Sunday evening, I got out the kerosene lamp, put a towel, soap and washcloth by the tub and generally prepared for my soak. Directly after getting into the tub, I noticed an unpleasant smell. Actually, it smelled a lot like something dead was under the tub. I kind of held my breath as much as possible and almost got into the soak, if not for the stink.

Monday, after being at the coast all day, the water in the tub was again ready for me, and after all that driving, I was ready for it. Oh yeah, uhg, rotten meat smell. Had enough light before the day was over, so I began removing some of the roofing from around the tub to find out what was going on inside. After removing the first panel, it was apparent that something was using the space under the tub as a home, the entire area was stuffed full of last autumn's maple leaves. The smell grew worse. Before proceeding, I put on my respirator with a set of charcoal paint fume filter cans installed.

A bit more digging, another tin panel removed (which was so rusted that it ripped apart when I moved it), and I have my answer. Deep in the bed of leaves was a full-sized, dead, very rotten, and almost-liquified opossum. Oh, uhg, gag-a-maggot. Now I was very glad I didn't attempt to build a fire, it would have taken an inferno to cremate this carcass.

So, you can guess the rest of the story, I got a shovel and gingerly removed the body, burying it on the empty lot next door. Since it was almost dark, and I had to repair the damaged panel, I gave up on a bath Monday night.

Yesterday the smell was mostly gone. I dug through my stash of roofing tin and found a section that could be cut to fit as a replacement panel. About 7PM, I lit a fire under the tub, fueled by newspaper and cedar bark from the wood shed floor. The paper and bark burned OK, but there were so many leaves that the chimney didn't draw very well, and smoke rolled out from the sides of the tub. Even after the leaves got to burning, they didn't flare up like I thought that they would, but kind of smoldered slowly. Now I was really, really glad I got the 'possum out before I lit the fire!!!

After dinner and a few phone calls, it was time to relax. The water was 114°, a bit more than I wanted, so I ran the solar collector circulating pump for a while, turning the heating panel into a radiator and bringing the temperature down to a reasonable 109°.

Two hours of soaking and a nice smell-free nap later, the project is a success. Next fall, after the tubbing season, I'm going to screw the fire access door into place to keep the varmints out.
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