Camp shower Options

Re Option 1.

We carried 15 metres of garden hose for the times when a dam or other water source was available.

Sometimes if the water source was too much lower than the vehicle, and even though the pump is self priming, I had to fill the hose with water before the pump would cope.

Could then have unlimited time under the shower.

Banjo

No worries so long as you aren't close enough to the water source so that the waste water will end up back in the creek/river/dam etc.........

In that sort of situation, I prefer to go down to the water's edge and fill a bucket and take back to the shower.

Each to their own I guess......

1. A vehicle-mounted heat exchanger and pump. This is all under the bonnet and you simply need to connect the inlet hose (from a bucket/jerry can etc) and the shower hose with rose. The engine's cooling system is used to heat up the showering water. Quick and easy.


Cool, but that means a cold shower unless The Vehicle is warmed up right? Cant Imagine the cook starting the car @5:00am and waiting for a tub!

Aussie campshower

The rocket shower you're thinking of is the Aussie Campshower. I've had one for almost 5 years, and while they're not particularly user friendly.......what a great shower. We've done trips with upto 30 people tagging along, and everybody has been able to have a good hot shower. A family of 4 can get a good shower with just 20 litres of water if you're careful...........they even roar like a rocket taking off. The best part is you don't have to cart your car down to the river for a shower like the Glind.

Keep the shiny side up
Ferris

certainly sounds the goods..
how do they work?

G'day Ferris,

Mate...... Please tell me that you don't shower in such a way as to allow your soapy/polluted water to go straight back into the river/creek/dam.....P-L-E-A-S-E tell that's not what you do..........

G'day Escape Artists,

The Aussie campshower has an industrial gas burner and an aluminium heat exchanger, so it heats a lot of water very quickly. Downside is, that if the water supply fails, the heat exchanger has a life expectancy of around 30 seconds. The design is very rugged and a bit agricultural, and even though it can be awkward to store, the shower always gets thrown in somewhere. It can be fiddly to light so we made some changes so even the youngest children can use it easily. I put a cold water by-pass on, so the kids can adjust the water temp more easily, and a return hose back to the water bucket, for when there is a water shortage. We also got a longer delivery hose to get away from the river a bit......that should allay Roachie's concerns. It is also totally user serviceable, with spare parts available at most gas shops and it is rugged enough that it should last a life time. We often travel and camp in a group of up to 5 families and it more than does the job for us. The other good thing about this shower is that it is Australian designed and made. If you want to know any more, give the designer a call. His number is on the website somewhere.

Keep the shiny side up
Ferris

Or you could put a schraeder valve in it and charge it from the compressor if you have one on your vehicle.

We used a weed sprayer on the Canning (doubled as an extinguisher) and I agree they are great for cleaning up at the end of the day.

Dave

We have decided to go the weed sprayer route but they are a bit dodgy in cold weather.

Warm or hot weather - no wuckers, they are great. They cost about 20 bucks at a hardware store and will easily wash two people with one fill.

They are especially great when it's really hot and you have just spent half the day setting up camp or packing up camp. Get the sprayer out, get yer gear off and a quick hose down with cold water brings the body temp back to respectability very quickly. Better still leave yer gear on, wet clothing will stay cool as long as you're moving about.

When it's cold, I have found it better to use a bucket of hot water and a cup in the toilet tent , and make sure you wash or shower before dinner, not after dark (brrrr too cold).
.

Hey Au-2 / Muzzgit What brand of sprayers do you use and have you modified the nozzle?
We are about to embark on a trip from Perth to Northern Qld and might need a shower along the way, it sounds like this might be a simple way to solve the shower problem when not staying in a CP. Any info would be appreciated.
Regards AC

Alan, I have not changed the one I have, but I would like to! Sometimes I just take the nozzle off the end but we go thru a bit more water than I would like.

Rick (aka member Doggy Tease) has one with a sower head on it. I got only a fleeting glimpse of it when camped with them a few years back but it looked like the end off one of those black solar showers.

Ours is a Hills 6L garden sprayer.

We have two of those heavy mats made out of old tyres to stand on to keep our feet out of the wet sand. And I always make sure the bottom of the shower tent doesn't invite snakes to crawl under.

On a warm evening two people cam easily shower with one fill. One third hot water 2 thirds cold.

Pretty sound decision. We've go a Coleman and it is wonderful, but I'm far from certain the amount of set up time is any less than a weed sprayer.

Jim.

The only mod we made to the sprayer was to shorten the wand, which was not adjustable, as it is held close to the body. This was a problem for our daughter, who is slightly handicapped, and needed someone on hand to help her with the Coleman. We found that we had to hold it a fair way off to use it and, after putting very hot water into the bottle, the on/off valve/trigger started to leak. Unscrewing the valve and wrapping some teflon plumbers tape around the thread solved this problem. The nozzle, set on spray, can remove all soap in a very short time, which was never the case with the Coleman. Usually the water got cold because we turned the shower off to soap-up and it required the Toolman to get it started again while the showerees teeth were nearly pulverised by chattering and we always used more water than we should have. We got our showers down to -4 ltrs for the three of us pretty quickly after changing to the sprayer.
Our 1st sprayer was a cheapie ($7.99) as an experiment. When we travel, we go to very isolated places to prospect for gold and have to be self sufficient waterwise. We have a 140ltr tank on the Camper Trailer and carry 9 x 20 ltr jerries to last 3 adults, 1 dog, for up to 2 weeks, if there are no creeks or rivers handy. Using the Coleman unit took at least 5 ltrs per person per day, which was not very economical in these circumstances.
I have used slow flowing river water for everything but cooking and do not use it to top up the tank in the trailer. I did find that there was a fair amount of muck in the water and filtered it through fishtank filter wool (weighs 0) as I filled the jerry can. By adding a bit of swimming pool chlorine and leaving it to sit for a while with the lid off, the water was sparklingly clear and odourless and stayed that way until we left that site. We showered with this water and I also washed our very dirty clothes in it whenever needed. I used a separate billy to boil this water as I didn't know how the chlorine would affect our kettle, chemically speaking. The blue Willow jerry can and/or a solar bag can be left out in the sun all day to warm up, and just pour it into the sprayer when needed.
There are no problems with this method other than the first spray out of the sprayer is usually cold water. This can be avoided by spraying the feet first or back into the jerry, until hot water comes through. We have a pop-up shower tent that is used as a loo too, and find that it gets like a sauna inside after the first shower. This is one of the rare times when everybody wants to be last in line. It all depends on how hot you make the water in the sprayer. There is also a lot less water under the mat on the ground when everyone is finished showering and drains/soaks away fairly quickly afterward.
The sprayer is also handy for washing the dishes after a greasy bar-b-que, the pressure of the water forces all the mess off the plates and a lot less of the campers tank water is used. Another point I might mention too, is that the river water is softer than the town water we take in our camper and that is a big plus with its cleaning power.
I now have a HILLS 3ltr battery operated sprayer from Mitre 10, with adjustable wand and I look forward to my first winter shower in the bush with it.
Good luck with your shower hunt, EscapeArtist!
Sheila.

I did the same when they were on sale at BCF, we got the shower tent and 4 x foam shower mats thrown in as part of the deal.

Cheers Sir Kev

Ours is just like Ozboc's system.

Also wanted to say that the 9kg gas bottle hasn't run out yet and we've been using it since about late January gee time flies that's almost 6 months!

Well if I knew the answer to that then I wouldn't be using a camp shower system at the moment at home. Lol if you can all imagine it, we have a proper shower base set up on a few stumps (to allow for the plumbing) and one of those camping awnings over the lot! It is temporary because we don't want to keep the facilities in the shed once the house is built.

When the first faulty unit suddenly bit the bullet (I knew it was faulty from the start only after the fact because it was always very fidgety compared to the replacement unit) I think it was one of the safety switches that was dicky. Anyway the only other way to heat the water was in a big pot on the stove! And then wash the kids and have a wash down myself in a really big bucket! Thankfully this was only required for one night till I drove back to the store & got it exchanged the next day.

But how these types of units work, you pump the water in by some means, through hose and then through copper tubing where you heat it with a naked flame of some sort, through more hose and the shower head. I imagine the car systems work with the same sort of principle.

With 240v I imagine you would want to use a similar method to boiling a kettle (isn't that how a hot water system works anyway), but it would have to be a continuous system from water source to shower head, and somehow regulated so it doesn't get too hot. So mini hot water system would be ideal but then you have the problem of getting the right temp or the right amount of cold water.

When we lived overseas for the first part of my life it was in a very basic sort of lifestyle. Mum used to have a huge pot of water on the wood stove, and used to tip it in the tub along with the right amount of cold water when it was bath time once a week!