Primus Hot Water Unit

Hi Paul,

We owned one of those Primus units until recently, they are quite fiddly and not automatic at all. When they either reach temperature or overheat in the boiler, it will turn off, and the pilot light goes off as well. So if the water isn't warm enough, you have to manually start it again. Heating a bucket of water was my prefered method as well, and I found that if the outlet was too close or even just pointing at the pump inlet, the boiler would overheat.

Eventually, after 2 years of frustration, i gave in to SWMBO and upgraded to a Coleman. Fully automatic and is self driving. In other words, with the Coleman, for my wife and kids to shower, i had to operate the Primus for them, as they couldn't grasp the idea. The Coleman we set up outside the shower tent and next to a small window. Whoever is showering simply reaches through the small window and switches it on and voila!!!!! Instant how water.

I know this probably doesn't help your original questions, but IMO the Primus units do require re-igniting often, and that's why we upgraded.


Cheers

Brian

I have a Primus Hot Water System and found the biggest problem was the plastic hoses they used which tend to kink and restrict the water flow. When the water flow is not sufficient, the temp rises and it turns itself off as a safety measure.

We replaced the hoses with good quality hose and have had no problems since. It can be tricky to get the pilot light to ignite, you need to be looking through the side window to see if it has ignited.

We removed the flimsy doors on each end of it as you can't pack the larger hose in there anyway.

If you purchased yours around Dec/jan then you might have a faulty one, I believe there was a recall.

We got ours in Jan / Feb, we're living in a shed whilst building a house, so needed a shower system and that seemed like the best set up without buying a proper hot water unit.

Anyway we did find it a bit of a pain to use, like you say it was hard to light - pilot light wouldn't stay on, had to hold it on for ages before we could turn it on properly and eventually it started cutting out and not lighting properly. The ARB store where we got it from changed it out and ever since the 2nd one has been running like a dream! Much easier to light up and it stays on, so in hindsight I could see that there was something wrong with the first from day dot. At the time of the exchange I thought there was something wrong with teh safety switch inside it - the one that kicks in and lets you light it once it knows that water is flowing, just sounded like it was kicking in and out all the time.

Sorry for the long ramble on above. It certainly sounds faulty to me and I'd take it back to exchange if I were you. I was in a camping store a few weeks ago and had a chat to the staff there, I mentioned the shower units worked really well considering ours gets used every night, and I mentioned we had to take the first one back, the lady then told me there had been a recall on some that were sold aorund December.

Reading threads here on Exploreoz on this very topic, I ended up going to bunnings and buying one of those weed sprayers as a back up, just in case the Primus ever does pack it in on us at the crucial moment! Although must say I'm pretty sure it will do the distance for us now.
Do a search on "weed sprayer" and it should bring up some threads on the very innovative idea for a very simple and cheap camp shower unit! We'll if you're happy boiling some water for the job.

Glad we have a Coleman, just turn the knob it ignites and cycles the gas on/off as required, complete no brainer. Mind you we had some problems with out first one that got replaced under warranty when I went to check it one day and the gas wouldn't ignite. New one is fine.

Couldn't think of any thing more annoying than having your shower interrupted, cold and wet tryng to get the pilot light back on.

Alwas wondered how good these units were.

I want to thank you guys for your responses. After reading the replies I went back out and set the unit up again only this time I spread the hoses out and as far away from the unit as they would permit.

You wont believe the result.

The damn thing worked !

It warmed up the water and didn't stop operating at all.

Obviously it can be very temperamental unless it is set up correctly so thank you for al your help.

Much appreciated.

Cheers.