So my looking into the Joolca HOTTAP v2, mostly caused by my infatuation with the flick a switch and hot water comes out immediately thing, has me thinking...
#1. Does the Joolca give you hot water straight away when starting with very cold water, or do you need to recirculate and warm the source first like you do with a Zodi?
Which got me back to thinking... What are folks REALLY using for off grid heated showers. I know some folks just sponge / rag bathe and that's cool, but there is nothing like a hot shower when you can get one. Especially after a long, cold, wet day off road in the mud and muck. So I am going to put down a poll just to cover my curiosity.
What do you use for an off grid / camp shower? I am just talking about getting the water hot, and spraying over yourself.
If the answer is other, please leave comments, and feel free to discuss and have fun with it. If you have a creative solution please bring it up!
For me, for now I have multiple options, the solar bag showers are more or less kept as hand wash stations now, and for shower I use either my Zodi battery shower and heat the water on the stove, mix into cool or cold water in a 5 gallon bucket until I get shower temp water. This has the advantage of requiring NO propane at all. I can use my dual fuel stove on RUG and not have to worry about a secondary fuel source. Or stick the percolator on top of the cooking grate over a camp fire and heat that way to save gasoline.
The other approach is to use the full on Zodi Hottap Instant hot shower. It runs off of the 1lb bottles which will last my wife and I about a week of showers per lb, not terrible. My biggest complaint is something that maybe an on demand won't fix anyway, and that is the delay to getting water hot and ready to shower. When starting with cold water, it takes about 10 minutes to get the water up to temp. Other than getting water to temp, the flow is sufficient. Not fantastic, probably around 1/2 or so gal / min. The same goes for the battery shower above. I mean it works, I can get wet, soap up, and rinse off with a nice hot shower. But rinsing off takes some, planning... Water use due to the low GPM is decent though. My wife will run a 5 gallon bucket down to where the pump starts sucking air.
Oh, and since the Zodi 4 gallon bucket / container was no longer available, I am using a plastic kitty litter tub that I have thorougly washed and spray painted gloss black. This MAY or MAY NOT help with solar heating, but it sure can't hurt. Plus it gives me a great way to carry my shower to camp. Stuff Zodi in the bottom, add propane bottle, add extra batteries in a box, and lastly toiletries bags. The whole shebant fits behind the drivers seat in the rear footwell in both the car, and the truck, and immediately below where the shower tent is kept. So load in / out / setup / takedown is super easy...
I'd honestly like a Joolca HOTTAP Nomad kit, but there is a lot about them I am not tickled with. Fuel feed seems to require a lot of fiddling to get connected unless you want to suck up more space with yet another propane tank... And it's BIG, and if you are overlanding in a smaller vehicle, that is a problem. Looking at the promo pics, the kit basically packs away the size of a 14 gallon tote, And it doesn't appear to have extra space inside for stowing additional stuff. For my Zodi I pack it in a cleaned up former kitty litter tub, a square 5 gallon bucket basically, and the zodi goes in, the fuel bottles go in, towels go in, and toiletries bags go in. And about 1/3 of the storage volume...
The other advantage of the Joolca is the off grid kit. Basically the pump, filter, and hoses. Mind you, I can rig up a pump and filter rig to fill my bucket as well, and may consider doing that, it's really the matter of convinience is all...
One key of that convenience advantage would be mounting for a DIY camper build. The Zodi doesn't really have a means of mounting, and remote control...
So there is my thoughts on the matter. What's yours?
#1. Does the Joolca give you hot water straight away when starting with very cold water, or do you need to recirculate and warm the source first like you do with a Zodi?
Which got me back to thinking... What are folks REALLY using for off grid heated showers. I know some folks just sponge / rag bathe and that's cool, but there is nothing like a hot shower when you can get one. Especially after a long, cold, wet day off road in the mud and muck. So I am going to put down a poll just to cover my curiosity.
What do you use for an off grid / camp shower? I am just talking about getting the water hot, and spraying over yourself.
If the answer is other, please leave comments, and feel free to discuss and have fun with it. If you have a creative solution please bring it up!
For me, for now I have multiple options, the solar bag showers are more or less kept as hand wash stations now, and for shower I use either my Zodi battery shower and heat the water on the stove, mix into cool or cold water in a 5 gallon bucket until I get shower temp water. This has the advantage of requiring NO propane at all. I can use my dual fuel stove on RUG and not have to worry about a secondary fuel source. Or stick the percolator on top of the cooking grate over a camp fire and heat that way to save gasoline.
The other approach is to use the full on Zodi Hottap Instant hot shower. It runs off of the 1lb bottles which will last my wife and I about a week of showers per lb, not terrible. My biggest complaint is something that maybe an on demand won't fix anyway, and that is the delay to getting water hot and ready to shower. When starting with cold water, it takes about 10 minutes to get the water up to temp. Other than getting water to temp, the flow is sufficient. Not fantastic, probably around 1/2 or so gal / min. The same goes for the battery shower above. I mean it works, I can get wet, soap up, and rinse off with a nice hot shower. But rinsing off takes some, planning... Water use due to the low GPM is decent though. My wife will run a 5 gallon bucket down to where the pump starts sucking air.
Oh, and since the Zodi 4 gallon bucket / container was no longer available, I am using a plastic kitty litter tub that I have thorougly washed and spray painted gloss black. This MAY or MAY NOT help with solar heating, but it sure can't hurt. Plus it gives me a great way to carry my shower to camp. Stuff Zodi in the bottom, add propane bottle, add extra batteries in a box, and lastly toiletries bags. The whole shebant fits behind the drivers seat in the rear footwell in both the car, and the truck, and immediately below where the shower tent is kept. So load in / out / setup / takedown is super easy...
I'd honestly like a Joolca HOTTAP Nomad kit, but there is a lot about them I am not tickled with. Fuel feed seems to require a lot of fiddling to get connected unless you want to suck up more space with yet another propane tank... And it's BIG, and if you are overlanding in a smaller vehicle, that is a problem. Looking at the promo pics, the kit basically packs away the size of a 14 gallon tote, And it doesn't appear to have extra space inside for stowing additional stuff. For my Zodi I pack it in a cleaned up former kitty litter tub, a square 5 gallon bucket basically, and the zodi goes in, the fuel bottles go in, towels go in, and toiletries bags go in. And about 1/3 of the storage volume...
The other advantage of the Joolca is the off grid kit. Basically the pump, filter, and hoses. Mind you, I can rig up a pump and filter rig to fill my bucket as well, and may consider doing that, it's really the matter of convinience is all...
One key of that convenience advantage would be mounting for a DIY camper build. The Zodi doesn't really have a means of mounting, and remote control...
So there is my thoughts on the matter. What's yours?
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