primus portable shower units

Submitted: Monday, May 22, 2006 at 22:40
ThreadID: 34154 Views:10084 Replies:6 FollowUps:8
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Can anyone offer any advice or links on these little gas shower units?
Are they heavy on gas? How is the water fed into the unit?
Any information/experiences would be greatly appreciated.
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Reply By: ozdragon - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 01:37

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 01:37
I havent had any experience with the primus but a lot of others have said they are not to flash.
Have you seen the Coleman Hot Water on Demand. You can get a shower attatchment for it. Water heats up in 5 secs. Comes with a 10 yr warrenty.

Peter
AnswerID: 174116

Follow Up By: Member - John R (NSW) - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 06:10

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 06:10
I'll second Ozdragon re the Coleman.

We absolutely love ours.
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Follow Up By: Member - uncle - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 07:44

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 07:44
I just bought a $20 shower head from the plumbers supplies and put it on our coleman, muuuch better now.That standard shower rose is useless.
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Reply By: Richard W (NSW) - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 06:29

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 06:29
Likewise
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Follow Up By: Wizard1 - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 11:34

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 11:34
We picked up our Coleman HWOD (there you go a new acronym) the other day along with the accessories including the shower attachement. I am very impressed with the ease of operation and speed of water heating. However we found the shower attachement a little ordinary.

The means of fitting seems fraught with the possibility of snapping off. The hose is fine if your a midget, at 6' 4" I will be having problems.

I have read previously about mods to the shower attachement. Apart form the obvious exchange of the hose for a longer one:

What is the advantage of replacing the shower head?

Is there a mod for attaching it to the fawcet pipe?

How realiable is the battery?

We're testing ours this weekend when we go away.

TIA
Wizard
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Follow Up By: Member - uncle - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 14:09

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 14:09
Hi Wizard, the adv of replacing the head is we went for a finer jet spraying head, this gives a better "fan" of water and seems to have a little more pressure than the old one,the holes were too big.
The battery seems to last a while,we will give ours a good workout this weekend also as we are away for 4 days. If you lenghten the hose by maybe only a foot,this shouldnt affect the shower if you choose a better head for the shower system.Maybe 2 foot might be ok ,trial and error.Cheers mate.
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Reply By: Member - Brian (Gold Coast) - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 07:08

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 07:08
I have the Primus. It is a little frustrating to use as the boiler cuts out when the temp gets to around 55 deg C. This is a good saftey aspect but it doesn't automatically restart, so in our case, for our family to use it, I monitor the operation while SWMBO & The Kidz have their showers and then heat up a bucket for me to use.

We use it like this;
fill a bucket with water, the pump goes into the bucket and we light the burner and recirculate the water till the bucket is at shower temp....... then the shower head gets passed into the shower for whoever is in there to use. Repeat the process till all are showered. As the temp rises the unit will cut out, not necessarily when the bucket is warm enough, just when the boiler is hot..... so there can be tepid water in the bucket and no flame! My job is to re-light the boiler (just a button push) when this happens, till the bucket is at shower temp. Then SWMBO will shower, usually one of the kidz will shower after her, then I re-fill the bucket and start again. Second kid showers and then I shower.

They work very well, just have a few limitations. The Coleman unit is more user friendly apparently, several people I know have them and are very happy. I shied away from them initially as the Coleman has a rechargeable battery involved and I seem to have no luck with rechargeables... :-(

I have toyed with the idea of selling my Primus and paying the extra for the Coleman, since I have learned from others how good the Coleman is.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Brian
AnswerID: 174129

Follow Up By: LHOTH - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 17:51

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 17:51
Brian, I have a primus system and it works well after trial/error. What we do is the same as yourself but we use a 20-25 lt container.....we preheat the water... put the preheated water container in shower hut...in between the wetting, lathering and rinsing the shower nozzle sits back into container, via a large funnel.....saving heaps of water.We average 4-5 showers from the one container.
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Reply By: Tony Shaw - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 07:58

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 07:58
Hi guys,

Primus have just released a new version which has a pilot light that stays on, and it's also alot easier to light.

I would still recomend the coleman one over the primus though just for it's extra features and simplicity, but they have also dropped the warranty on it back down to 3 years.

Cheers, ToNy!
AnswerID: 174139

Reply By: Redback - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 09:05

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 09:05
Yep the Primus is a PITA to operate, the coleman, when we were looking for a shower was the better unit, but look at the new Primus cause if it has improved it's a very handy unit mainly because it is easier to pack or mount permanently than the Coleman.

Another unit to look at is Aussie Hot Camp Shower this unit is supposed to be excellent, albeit a bit noisy.

Baz.
AnswerID: 174156

Follow Up By: Member - John R (NSW) - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 09:12

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 09:12
$423.00!! I want one, but only if that chicky-babe comes with it! WooHooo! :-)
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Follow Up By: Redback - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 15:21

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 15:21
I hadn't noticed ;-))

Another option is a hotwater system like Bosch, if you have the space or a camper.

We have this in our campertrailer, it's a Bosch continuous gas hot water system it delivers 300ltrs an hour of hot water.

We run it off our shurflo 60psi 12v pump from our water tank.



Baz.
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Follow Up By: DamoHJ61 - Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 21:07

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 at 21:07
Thanks for the advice and suggestions, it's all a bit clearer now and a lot more options available than I was aware of.
Gotta love this forum!!!!
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Reply By: gonebush SA - Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 22:15

Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 22:15
we also have a primus, we did the toss up on what to buy primus or coleman and went with the primus because it's size, it was made to heat water not as an urn, we didn't need to buy more parts to use it as a shower etc. yes we to had trouble lighting it at first when we followed the instrutions but once hubby tried it his way we can all light it first time every time. unlike the others above that have a primus we don't reheat the water, we tried once when it was quite cold weather and found that the water was miles to hot. we are very pleased with the preasure and operation of the unit. we use an old stove stand at the back of our shower tent to stand the unit on and the gas bottle on the shelf underneath with the hose and shower head tied into the tent, we use a large black drum for the water on the bottom of the drum there is a block to stop the pump sucking up any sedament and when we are on the murray we strain the water through a few layers of teatowels (it's amazing how dirty they get). we were also suprized at how good it was on gas it work out to be quite cheap showering. good luck with your choise hope all goes well.
AnswerID: 174567

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