Excus teh rambling here. In my digging I am finding info all over the place on this subject of hot camp showers. I'm simply trying to put this into one place for my own perpective to wrap my head around the concepts, advantages and disadvantages. And share them with anyone else that might be looking into the subject matter.
Let's get to it shall we?
For starters, assuming you want a shower, let's assume you have the water delivery through some sort of spray head system figured out, either DIY, or commercially produced and bought, or maybe modded DIY, but you can get hot water from its source, to spray over you and call it a shower.
Before you can spray hot water on yourself, you need to make water hot unless it is an August day in a beach campground in Texas in that case, I can almost guarantee the water coming out of the spigot is going to be HOT... But I digress.
I am going to break down the types of heating into 4 categories. They are...
Passive heating. This means your heating of the water is done entirely passively. You put water into a thing, and just set the thing down and walk away, or leave it where it is, well you get the idea or not...
In this category the main way of heating water is via solar. So solar shower bags, black water buckets with black lids either cast black or painted, or black roof rack pipe chambers used create a solar cooker of sorts that will heat the water. There are also those that use plastic pump up sprayers in black that do more or less the same thing... Results of this are pretty mixed as there is a severe range of different results based on climate conditions at the time. Dark overcast snowy winter day? Don't rely on that solar bag? Hot, clear, intense sun Day in the Sonoran Desert? Be very careful how long you leave the solar heater out or it will get too hot!
Other drawbacks, particularly to the solar bag shower / water heater is that in order to work as a shower, you must lift a typically 18" bag that holds 5 gallons of water, and secure it over your head height. Not an easy task for the young and nimble, for those of us that are older with back problems this is a painful prospect.
In my opinion, and take its value for what you paid for it, is that a solar heater of some sort, shower bag, or bucket is a good investment in as much as at the very worst, if you are using a pump sprayer of some kind to shower yourself, the solar heater will at the very least reduce the amount of energy neated by a more active heating method. .
We move on to Active heating, fully manual. This means filling a vessel full of water, and heating it on a stove, or campfire, and mixing it with cooler / cold water to achieve your desired shower temperature. For me, for now at least, This is the method I am choosing, along with the solar passive initial heating. I am undecided but leaning toward just using the black painted water bucket as my vessel and letting it heat in the daytime sun.
From here, we move on to Active Heating, partially manual. This is where we start getting into comercial purpose built propane camp showers. And we are in the Category of the Mr. Heater B.O.S.S., the Coleman Hot Water On Demand (HWOD), or the Zodi Hot Tap, or Zip instant hot shower systems. With these systems, you must turn the water flow on at the unit, and ignite the flame to heat the water being pumped. Depending on the amount of gas being applied, and the starting temperature of the water, you may have to recirculate water back into the source container. These are really only feaseable if you have a camping partner to help you control the shower unit, OR if your shower shelter has a pass through, zippered openeing which you can reach through to operate the unit. With the proper adapters, faucet feed water can be used at an appropriate flow rate, adjust to your hearts content just make sure you aren't melting your copper tubing... I am also going to include in this category devices like the shower coil, a simply copper coil connected to hoses and a pump. You place the coil, pump going, into the campfire, and heat the water via campfire coals, you get the temp out of the end that you get. I have never tried one, not sure how well or scary they work. Chime in and tell us if you have tried one!
Lastly, you have Active Heater, fully automatic. This would include but is FAR from limited to the Joolca HOTTAP, Camplux 5L, Ecotemp L5 and countless other similar machines. These you route the shower head and hose into your shower room / shelter, hook up fuel and water source, either hose, or pump, set the desired flow rate, and gas rate, flip the switch on the shower head and water begins to flow, ignition happens automatically, and the shower gets hot to your setting. These typically produce much higher BTU range than the other units, and need to be connected to a bulk tank, so they consume a considerable amount more space in your rig, but provide a considerably higher level of convenience once set up.
Not previously mentioned as I am unsure where to sort this one, but the vehicle mounted heat exchanger systems. These convert vehicle engine heat into heat for shower water, which can be massively convenient, but require permanent mounting into your vehicle and have the potential for an additional point of engine cooling system failure as they mount inline the vehicle cooling system. Consult with your vendor, and vehicle MFG to determine if such a system is compatible with your vehicle. I am also not quite certain of how temperature control of output water is handled. I might assume storage tank for hot water, and mixed in feed of cold water so a hot cold mixer like a home shower?
Anyone that can give feedback on those in vehicle systems, please give more details.
So that's it, that's my listing. Am I right? Am I wrong? Am I missing something here?
Please chime in here to the discussion and add your input.
Let's get to it shall we?
For starters, assuming you want a shower, let's assume you have the water delivery through some sort of spray head system figured out, either DIY, or commercially produced and bought, or maybe modded DIY, but you can get hot water from its source, to spray over you and call it a shower.
Before you can spray hot water on yourself, you need to make water hot unless it is an August day in a beach campground in Texas in that case, I can almost guarantee the water coming out of the spigot is going to be HOT... But I digress.
I am going to break down the types of heating into 4 categories. They are...
Passive heating. This means your heating of the water is done entirely passively. You put water into a thing, and just set the thing down and walk away, or leave it where it is, well you get the idea or not...
In this category the main way of heating water is via solar. So solar shower bags, black water buckets with black lids either cast black or painted, or black roof rack pipe chambers used create a solar cooker of sorts that will heat the water. There are also those that use plastic pump up sprayers in black that do more or less the same thing... Results of this are pretty mixed as there is a severe range of different results based on climate conditions at the time. Dark overcast snowy winter day? Don't rely on that solar bag? Hot, clear, intense sun Day in the Sonoran Desert? Be very careful how long you leave the solar heater out or it will get too hot!
Other drawbacks, particularly to the solar bag shower / water heater is that in order to work as a shower, you must lift a typically 18" bag that holds 5 gallons of water, and secure it over your head height. Not an easy task for the young and nimble, for those of us that are older with back problems this is a painful prospect.
In my opinion, and take its value for what you paid for it, is that a solar heater of some sort, shower bag, or bucket is a good investment in as much as at the very worst, if you are using a pump sprayer of some kind to shower yourself, the solar heater will at the very least reduce the amount of energy neated by a more active heating method. .
We move on to Active heating, fully manual. This means filling a vessel full of water, and heating it on a stove, or campfire, and mixing it with cooler / cold water to achieve your desired shower temperature. For me, for now at least, This is the method I am choosing, along with the solar passive initial heating. I am undecided but leaning toward just using the black painted water bucket as my vessel and letting it heat in the daytime sun.
From here, we move on to Active Heating, partially manual. This is where we start getting into comercial purpose built propane camp showers. And we are in the Category of the Mr. Heater B.O.S.S., the Coleman Hot Water On Demand (HWOD), or the Zodi Hot Tap, or Zip instant hot shower systems. With these systems, you must turn the water flow on at the unit, and ignite the flame to heat the water being pumped. Depending on the amount of gas being applied, and the starting temperature of the water, you may have to recirculate water back into the source container. These are really only feaseable if you have a camping partner to help you control the shower unit, OR if your shower shelter has a pass through, zippered openeing which you can reach through to operate the unit. With the proper adapters, faucet feed water can be used at an appropriate flow rate, adjust to your hearts content just make sure you aren't melting your copper tubing... I am also going to include in this category devices like the shower coil, a simply copper coil connected to hoses and a pump. You place the coil, pump going, into the campfire, and heat the water via campfire coals, you get the temp out of the end that you get. I have never tried one, not sure how well or scary they work. Chime in and tell us if you have tried one!
Lastly, you have Active Heater, fully automatic. This would include but is FAR from limited to the Joolca HOTTAP, Camplux 5L, Ecotemp L5 and countless other similar machines. These you route the shower head and hose into your shower room / shelter, hook up fuel and water source, either hose, or pump, set the desired flow rate, and gas rate, flip the switch on the shower head and water begins to flow, ignition happens automatically, and the shower gets hot to your setting. These typically produce much higher BTU range than the other units, and need to be connected to a bulk tank, so they consume a considerable amount more space in your rig, but provide a considerably higher level of convenience once set up.
Not previously mentioned as I am unsure where to sort this one, but the vehicle mounted heat exchanger systems. These convert vehicle engine heat into heat for shower water, which can be massively convenient, but require permanent mounting into your vehicle and have the potential for an additional point of engine cooling system failure as they mount inline the vehicle cooling system. Consult with your vendor, and vehicle MFG to determine if such a system is compatible with your vehicle. I am also not quite certain of how temperature control of output water is handled. I might assume storage tank for hot water, and mixed in feed of cold water so a hot cold mixer like a home shower?
Anyone that can give feedback on those in vehicle systems, please give more details.
So that's it, that's my listing. Am I right? Am I wrong? Am I missing something here?
Please chime in here to the discussion and add your input.
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