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> Our Mitsubishi has other nice features like it can recirculate the water in the bath through a heat exchanger after you already filled it and got in, so it wi

• fooqux 8d ago
  > How long do you sit in a bath? The entire point of a bath is to relax and soak in it. Otherwise I'd just take a far more economical shower.
  • ibejoeb 8d ago
    Interesting that that's a feature of the water heater and not the tub. It has to travel through the plumbing all the way round-trip to the heater? You must have isolated recirculation plumbing to deal with the grey water, yeah?
    • pbmonster 8d ago
      Technically, you could also just pull refrigerant lines from the heat pump to the bath tub - you probably already run those to the indoor AC units you have in different rooms anyway - or connect the bath tub to the hot water lines you run to the radiators. Both imply a grey water heat exchanger built into the tub. Depends on setup, of course. If there's a central AC blowing hot/cold air through ducts, you're stuck using a grey water loop. But it is the least attractive setup...
      • kwarcode 8d ago
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    • kalleboo 8d ago
      Typically Japanese homes are laid out economically so the bath is right where the hot water heater is. In our house from the 70's it's probably not more than meter through the wall to the water heater. Even in apartment buildings, typically each apartment has it's own tankless gas water heater on the outside wall of the building so it's easy to meter usage separately.
      • AngryData 8d ago
        That is what I always see in wet saunas/bathrooms around me. The bathing room is a main feature so things like main plumbing and water heaters are all placed around that to keep it simple. Recirculation additions after that would then be two simple connections off the back of the tub, probably near where the faucet goes.
• kalleboo 8d ago
  > How long do you sit in a bath? We love our baths here in Japan > My immediate reaction to this is, “there’s a way for my house to be remotely flooded”. I forgot to mention that it senses and automatically stops filling the bath at a select number of liters, even if you start a bath using the physical button when you're at home.
• deleted 8d ago
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• Dennip 8d ago
  Most baths (in the UK at least) have overflows right so the primary risk is just wasting a lot of water?
• bluGill 8d ago
  If I'm in the bath I'm either reading a good book, or talking with my wife (I have a tub big enough for two - takes a lot of water to fill) - either way I'm going to be in it for an hour or two. As the other poster said, if I want to get clean I'll take a quick shower. The tub is nice when my muscles get sore and tight from work.
• komega 8d ago
  > How long do you sit in a bath? Another Japan resident here! It is common for a family to share a bath for the evening. (One at a time!) This works because each person showers to get clean before you get in the bath. Many also have folding bath covers, which help to avoid the water from cooling down and to keep the water clean during the showers. Still, nobody wants to be last. > My immediate reaction to this is, “there’s a way for my house to be remotely flooded”. A smart reaction! But most baths are also whole-room units, with a floor drain, and are intended to get wet. I myself have forgotten to stop the bath water a number of times (neither I nor my bath are so "smart") and while it is an unfortunate waste of water, there is no danger of flooding, only slight embarrassment.
  • gwbas1c 8d ago
    A Japanese bath sounds a lot more like what Americans call a hot tub. BTW, Japanese bathing is somewhat visible in My Neighbor Totoro, a really cute movie.
    • ThrowawayTestr 8d ago
      If you look at a picture of one, they're basically tiny hot tubs.
    • Groxx 8d ago
      In most ways, yes. E.g. you clean yourself before you get in, so the water remains relatively clean after a few people. Unlike a hot tub though it's drained between uses, so it doesn't really have some of the nastier issues that hot tubs can acquire (nor does it need higher chlorine content to mitigate it).
  • cynicalsecurity 8d ago
    > (One at a time!) That's unexpected.
  • fransje26 8d ago
    > A smart reaction! But most baths are also whole-room units, with a floor drain Nice concept! Do you have any problems with mold build up?
• fourneau 8d ago
  Barring some catastrophic overflow clogging + drain clogging or other issue, your house will be fine! Your wallet may not be. These are truly _bath_ rooms. The shower and bath are side by side, with the intent that you wash off before hopping into the bath to soak. Thus if the tub overflowed it would just go down the shower drain.
• numpad0 8d ago
  > How long do you sit in a bath? 80kg of meat can hold a lot of heat. It cools quicker than you think it would. Also, Japanese families often share the bathwater within themselves(but everyone showers outside the tub first), and the water will become lukewarm at some point in that use case. > My immediate reaction to this is, “there’s a way for my house to be remotely flooded”. Yep, remotely operating a machinery will always have some risks. Every machinery should have someone with an emergency stop button should be monitoring it at all time, ideally. But it's a well engineered tub auto-fill in the shower room, it effectively belongs to "inherently safe" category of equipment.
  • germinalphrase 8d ago
    Do you have a water drain in your bathroom floor? This is uncommon in the US, so a bath overflow quickly becomes a significant structural issue.
    • SoftTalker 8d ago
      Bathroom floor drain is common (might even be a code requirement?) in commercial buildings but not in homes.
    • numpad0 8d ago
      The tub sits in a big shower booth. Other bathroom amenities like sink and washing machines are installed outside the booth. Toilet is usually a separate room entirely. So no problem overflowing water onto the floor since that's how you take a shower.
    • pbhjpbhj 8d ago
      But USA bath tubs have overflows (redirecting water into the drain if the taps are left on), surely?
      • compiler-guy 8d ago
        In the US, any tub made past about 1900 or so has an overflow drain that prevents overfilling. The adoption of such drains not quite contemporaneous with the adoption of indoor plumbing, but very soon after. It's the metal plate usually just below the faucet that looks like it might be useless. But it has an opening underneath to let the overflow water in. These are always sized to handle more water than the faucet can output. This is basically a non-concern in anything but very, very old, unremodeled bathrooms. The sinks do as well, but it is more obvious.
• BugsJustFindMe 8d ago
  > How long do you sit in a bath? I'm an American and my answer is at least an hour, maybe more, depending on how I'm feeling. I usually listen to an audiobook. Baths are for hanging out and relaxing in.
  • cassepipe 8d ago
    Reading this comment from an hot european bathtub right now, I've been here for two hours
• kazinator 8d ago
  If you have a delayed start dishwasher or washing machine, you already have that.
• brianaker 8d ago
  While in the US making a bathroom a "wet room" is rare, it can be quite common in other countries. You can totally remodel bathrooms to be "wet rooms" in the US, it is well worth it. Kids flooding the bathroom via the tub? Not a problem. Toilet overflowing? Gross, but not a problem. I wish I would have made all the bathrooms in my home wet rooms.
  • MisterTea 8d ago
    This was my biggest takeaway from Japan in terms of home design - the bathroom design. At a small apartment in Tokyo the "bathroom" was in fact three separate spaces: a nook where the washer and sink lived which opened into the living room, one side of the nook featured the toilet closet, the other, and actual bathroom with tub and shower. This lets three people use the plumbing fixtures - toilet, shower/bath and sink. Though not all of the places I stayed at split the sink and bathroom. Contrast this with the all-in-one design where a person taking a shower monopolizes all the plumbing fixtures even while they are not using them. I was on a bachelor party trip with 8 guys and two bathrooms where some inconsiderate people camped out in the shower for 20 minutes while people waking up had to pee so badly they went outside in the bushes. Meanwhile on a trip to Japan with five people we could easily share one or two split bathrooms and never had an issue. Oh, and the electric bidet is a clear winner in terms of bathroom accessory to buy. Less TP use and no threat of swamp ass that demands you take a shower. Heated seat in winter is a blessing, especially in the morning. After my Japan trip it was the first thing I bought when I got back home.
• riffraff 8d ago
  Not OP but I used to sit in a bath for a long time reading, gradually adding the hottest water to keep it at a nice temp. It's been a while tho, but I'm sure there's someone like me out there :)
• sellmesoap 7d ago
  Every bathtub I've met has an overflow drain near the top, although maybe that drain is smaller then the output of my faucet, good thing mine isn't connected to the internet :D, YMMV.