In the 1800s, the lack of cleanliness in the population resulted in a campaign to improve health conditions. In 1860 the Health Act was passed. Heating water for washing the body and house was time-consuming, and was traditionally done on Saturday – washing day. Only in the second half of the 20th century did cleanliness become a daily activity.
Bathroom and toilet
Public baths were established so that the campaign for better hygiene could reach everybody. Torggata bad in Christiania (Oslo) from 1862 was open for the whole population. At the end of the 1800s, bathrooms were installed in some well-to-do Kristiania homes.
Up until the beginning of the 1900s, back yard or rear stairwell privies were the universal types of lavatories in the city. In 1775, Alexander Cummings patented the first water closet. The first WC in Norway was installed in Christiania ca. 1860, and in 1864 the city had a total of 28 WCs. There was no purification of sewage at that time. WCs spread pollution and infection, and was forbidden in 1879. Not until the opening of municipal purification plants in 1911, did new buildings ordinarily have WCs.
Det Rivertzke boligkompleks (built 1913) in Kristiania attracted attention, because in the block, consisting of two-room apartments for the working classes, every apartment had a WC. The first OBOS apartment building, Etterstad 1 from 1931, was equipped with both WCs and bathrooms. After World War II, bathrooms became standard in all new homes, but 31% of Norwegian homes were without a bathroom and 27% did not have a WC as late as 1973.
Washing machine
Up until the 20th century, laundry was manual and physically tiring work. Water had to be carried. Some apartment buildings, like Wessels gate 15 (built 1865), had running water in all the apartments from the beginning. Just the same, laundry was done in the laundry room in the basement.
Electric washing machines were sold in Norway from the 1920s, but were not commonly used before 1950. 72% of Norwegian households had a washing machine in 1973. Strenuous work with copper and washboard are in the post-war period replaced by automatic washing machines and tumble dryers.
Vacuum cleaner
Knowledge about the connection between health and hygiene also applied to housecleaning. This was, however less mechanized than other housework. Housecleaning is still done with soap and water, cloth and brush. However, electric hot water heaters, for sale from the 1920s, still simplified housework considerably.
The most revolutionary cleaning appliance for the home was the electric vacuum cleaner, which was sold from around World War I. Neither the design nor the technology has to any great degree changed since then.