Nature Supplies Boise with Hot Water 



How the city uses boiling artesian water for its swimming pools and its laundries 



Four wells supply Boise with nearly a 

 million gallons of hot water a day 



THE city of Boise, Idaho, has a curious 

 hot water supply — a natural artesian 

 flow of 800,000 gallons of water a day 

 with a temperature of 171 degrees Fahren- 

 heit which is only 41 degrees below the 

 boiling point. In addition 450,000 gallons 

 a- day are pumped. School buildings, 

 hotels, boarding houses, laundries and 

 residences to the number of one hundred 

 and thirty-eight are supplied with the hot 

 water, both for heating and domestic use, 

 and during the summer months sixty addi- 

 tional buildings are supplied. The great 

 Boise natatorium, a building 215 by 200 

 feet and over 100 feet high, with a swim- 

 ming pool 65 by 125 feet and with shower 

 and other baths, uses this natural hot 

 water. The water is believed to have great 

 medicinal and stimulative properties, be- 

 cause it contains a large percentage of soda, 

 potash, lithia, magnesia, iron, etc. 



The water comes from four wells 400 

 feet deep, two of them eighteen inches in 

 diameter and two six inches. The larger 

 wells are equipped with centrifugal pumps 

 located 144 feet below; ground. One of these 



The swimming pool at Boise which receives 

 its natural hot water from inexhaustible springs 



raises the entire available supply of water, 

 the other is held in reserve. With no pump- 

 ing, the natural flow is 800,000 gallons daily, 

 which is one of the heaviest artesian flows 

 known, either hot or cold. Only a few wells 

 in the United States have developed over 

 1,000,000 gallons a day, even with pumps. 



The Boise wells are owned by a hot and 

 cold water company, and, while others 

 have driven a number of wells on adjacent 

 land, no additional hot water supply has 

 been developed. The use of this natural 

 hot water for heating purposes extends[^back 

 for a period of twenty-five years, but it is 

 only within the last few years that the 

 available supply has been fully developed 

 for general use. 



The maintenance and operation of the 

 hot water part of the system requires a 

 force of four men during a period of eight 

 months and one man for the remaining four 

 months of the year when the wells are 

 operated without pumping. The piping in 

 the natatorium and other buildings where 

 the water is used corresponds to that of the 

 ordinary system of hot-water heating. 



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