She's served us well ....(If you've arrived at this page through a Google or similar search - welcome ! This is the most visited - and searched for - page on my blog, with countless daily 'hits' from around the world - especially from South Africa ! Links at the bottom of this post will take you to other posts I've written about donkey boilers & if you have any questions, you're welcome to contact me via the contact link in my right sidebar. Yeah - long live the DONKEY BOILER !!!)
Boiler. Yup, you read that correctly – not another rescued animal of mine, but rather a donkey boiler. (I think the name comes from the shape of the boiler – or the original idea of a water drum on 4 posts or “legs” ?)
I had to write on my blog about our dear old donkey boiler, seeing as she has amused so many of my friends and family living in the first world - where hot water means simply switching on the tap with the red dot ! “A donkey WHAT ?!” they ask, through fits of laughter. (It’s a great conversation starter and has livened up many a party !)
Basically, if we want hot water for bathing or in the kitchen, we have to light a fire inside the donkey boiler. The fire then heats the water in a tank inside it, and the water is fed through pipes in to the house. This system works better than any geyser, especially here where the electricity supply is erratic. (We actually generate our own, but more about that later).
Our donkey boiler consumes a lot of wood, so we buy tractor loads which have been legally chopped from a nearby forest – we pay around U$100 per load, which lasts us about 6 months – not bad at all.
Simon, our trusty “night askari” (night watchman) is responsible for lighting the fire each night, in time for the toddler’s bath. We just go without hot water during the day as it’s such a waste to light the whole boiler just for the sake of a sink full of hot dish water (much easier to just boil some on the gas stove).
When it rains, we have a slight problem as the wood is usually wet and we battle (or should I say, Simon does) to get the fire started.
My husband tried to install a geyser to run off our electricity last year – all to no avail. (I told him it would never work – honestly !) So now we are upgrading the old faithful donkey boiler. In fact, she is being completely destroyed and re-built in a more “streamlined” and “efficient” design – as even donkey boilers need a makeover once in a while, it would seem ….
I had to write on my blog about our dear old donkey boiler, seeing as she has amused so many of my friends and family living in the first world - where hot water means simply switching on the tap with the red dot ! “A donkey WHAT ?!” they ask, through fits of laughter. (It’s a great conversation starter and has livened up many a party !)
Basically, if we want hot water for bathing or in the kitchen, we have to light a fire inside the donkey boiler. The fire then heats the water in a tank inside it, and the water is fed through pipes in to the house. This system works better than any geyser, especially here where the electricity supply is erratic. (We actually generate our own, but more about that later).
Our donkey boiler consumes a lot of wood, so we buy tractor loads which have been legally chopped from a nearby forest – we pay around U$100 per load, which lasts us about 6 months – not bad at all.
Simon, our trusty “night askari” (night watchman) is responsible for lighting the fire each night, in time for the toddler’s bath. We just go without hot water during the day as it’s such a waste to light the whole boiler just for the sake of a sink full of hot dish water (much easier to just boil some on the gas stove).
When it rains, we have a slight problem as the wood is usually wet and we battle (or should I say, Simon does) to get the fire started.
My husband tried to install a geyser to run off our electricity last year – all to no avail. (I told him it would never work – honestly !) So now we are upgrading the old faithful donkey boiler. In fact, she is being completely destroyed and re-built in a more “streamlined” and “efficient” design – as even donkey boilers need a makeover once in a while, it would seem ….
(Note - you can read about the construction of our new donkey boiler here.)
