Hot water bottle sealant

[philoÂÂ]

Though I did not grow up during the depression, my father did and I really got a good picture of what it was like.

One day he came home from the store crying because he was not able to get the loaf a bread he was sent out to get...the family was short by one penny. They had to wait a few days for my grandfather to get back to town with the small amount of money he earned by selling eggs door to door.

The reason the family was able to eat was because my father trapped pigeons under the bridge!

I just did a quick on-line search and you will be happy to know there are a lot of varieties of hot water bottles some for as little as $4

There was one type I saw that clamped shut and did not require a screw-in plug.

As to your comment (that I snipped for brevity) about Lowes being a clone of HD....yep!

I was in the industrial battery business and we had a national contract with HD. When we got the Lowes account they wanted a contract just like HD only with one improvement to it...and that's what we gave them.

BTW: They were both good customers and when I have a good customer at work, I support them back.

[Fred McKenzie]

I was going to suggest Vaseline or petroleum jelly, but plumber's grease may be better.

You might try any kind of grease you have on hand, and see if reasonable pressure causes a leak.

What about an O-Ring? An O-Ring lubricated with petroleum jelly?

Fred

[Mayayana]

| You might try any kind of grease you have on hand, and see if reasonable | pressure causes a leak. | | What about an O-Ring? An O-Ring lubricated with petroleum jelly? |

There can be high pressure with a hot water bottle, and the seal needs to be between the threads and the bottle's plastic wall. It's hard to see how something that's not adhesive would work. If water can be pushed through between the isert threads and plastic wall then why wouldn't it also push grease or petrolatum through?

[TimR]

Does anybody still blow these up?

When we were kids (60s) it was a test of strength to blow into one until it exploded, similar to how we used to tear apart sixpack plastic connectors.

[dadiOH]

I did, I'm 81. Can't say the depression really affected us though, the old man always had a position. Neverhteless, frugality is ingrained in me.

?? Have you looked at bread or chips in a supermarket recently?? :)

True that. Moreover, the clerks generally knew something about what they were selling.

[dadiOH]

Yep. Think PVC pipe glue. Takes a while to actually dissolve it though, to soften so one thing adheres to another, not so much.

[Mayayana]

| > Anyone living who grew up during the Depression | > would be at least 85 now.

| I did, I'm 81.

That would have made you 7 y.o. in 1940. So you grew up affected by the Depression, but by the time you were out and about we were into WW2.

| > That brings up an interesting issue, though, that | > I expect others have noticed: We live in a time of | > global trade, yet variety keeps shrinking. | | ?? Have you looked at bread or chips in a supermarket recently?? :) |

True enough. And cigarettes. Growing up we only had one version of Winston or Marlboro. Now there are probably 6 of each. :) I guess that's true with most edibles. There's real variety. (ex.: beer) And there's also trumped up variety. (ex.: types of soda and cigarettes, as well as a large variety of industrial foods)

It's an interesting question as to why it works that way. I guess it's mostly durable goods that lack variety and lack sources. Those kinds of stores have gradually disappeared or gone to chain versions. There used to be 3 hardware stores within about

2 miles of me. Now there are none. Stationery? gone. And if I go to the mall there's almost nothing practical. It's mostly clothing stores for early-teen girls.

[Stormin Mormon]

When my former friend Lenny had a winter power cut (due to not paying the bill) I visited several times, loaned him my propane heater, ran the furnace off my generator, etc.

They still had gas hot water. I suggested to Amy to make a hot water bottle with a soda pop bottle. She had no clue (like so many moments there). I filled one of the kids twenty ouncer Mt Dew bottles with hot water from the tap. Slipped it into my coat, and made MMMM noises. Handed it to her. She slipped the water bottle in and then I could see the light bulb (non electric) go on.

Would a two or three liter soda bottle do the job and less likely to leak?

[Ed Pawlowski]

It will dissolve styrene based plastics.

[Stormin Mormon]

Uh, you might want to consider. Perfectly good and leaking are not adjectives used to describe the same hot water bottle at the same point in space at the same time. Fizziks, you know.

If you keep buying and fixing broken stuff from the store, they will keep selling broken stuff. It's only by active and assertive returns that stores learn of their broken stuff. You are rewarding the sale of broken stuff by fixing it your self.

"We sold a million units, and not one was returned". See?

[J Burns]

Grease has been used for centuries, maybe thousands of years, to make airtight or watertight seals. Various adhesives adhere to various surfaces. Grease seems to adhere to everything. When an adhesive hardens, it may break loose and no longer adhere. Grease keeps adhering.

If I used grease to close a 1" hole, it wouldn't take much pressure to push it out. If I whittled a wooden plug for the hole and greased it, the grease would block the tiny spaces where the plug didn't match the hole. As long as grease doesn't melt, it will resist a lot of pressure, depending on how tiny the holes are. The spaces between your threads must be tiny.

[Roger]

The same exact thing happened to me. I experienced a life changing back injury. Went and bought hot water bottles from CVS for warm moist heat therapy (and no mediocre artificial gel microwave packs do not rise to this chronic, life long challenge). Every 2 months I found myself sending someone out to buy 3 or 4 more hot water bottles from the only pharmacy around. ( I need 3-4 each night for coverage over the injured areas) The other stores I have checked such as Walmart stopped carrying the durable and higher quality red ribbed rubber hot water bottles. So I was left with only these cheap reddish plastic bottles, made from the kind of plastic that when heated probably shouldn't be against your skin, doesn't hold the heat the way rubber does, and most likely is the very cheapest material they could find to make the highest profit imaginable in the market. I really WANT to return them, but I never kept the boxes they came in OR the receipts. How can I possibly walk into CVS and expect my money back under those conditions? Each time I bought more, under the duress of intense pain, I kept having faith that THIS time they would not leak, since rubber hot water bottles never used to leak, I have never heard of a rubber hot water bottle ever leaking in my entire life, not until they dry rotted decades later! I have bought 3 batches, and VOW to NEVER buy them again. And every time I bring the subject up to people I tell them all about it, and (now that I can walk) when I go to CVS, I tell customers in the store about it too. Lucky for us, we now have the internet age, and the red ribbed hot water bottles that you should buy are available online, after a few hours of shopping for them with vague search terms I have found them.