Glenlivet wrote:eamarquardt wrote:The pressure cooker is designed to run at 15psi. I took out the rubber safety plug and installed an industrial pressure relief valve set to 15 psi, a schrader valve to pressurize it, a pressure gauge, and a dip tube so you pull the water from the bottom of the cooker. As I recall it costs about $25 bucks in parts to do it right. I weld up the lid a bit where I drill and tap the extra holes.
I got my pressure cooker at a garage sale for $5. They are also available on EBay.
If you get the lid to me , I can modify it for you.
Cheers, Gus
I'm intrigued by the pressure cooker shower water heater/general purpose pot idea and I have just that very pressure cooker I inherited from my mothers canning home industry.
I was wondering though, if there isn't a simpler solution to the water pressure drop issue... Seeing as the pressure cooker is limited to 15 pounds via the original rocker, why not just plumb the output from a cheap small 12 volt compressor to the cooker lid and when whatever volume of water you have filled gets to showering temp then just put the lid and rocker on, fire up the little compressor, and once the rocker starts it's wobbling hissing business, shower away? You'd have full 15 pounds right to the last drop.
The cookers release rocker should easily accommodate blowing off any extra of the low output volume of one of those little 12 volt compressors, and permit no more (or less) than 15 pounds above ambient to develop in the sealed cooker.
In any case if the rocker valve should somehow fail (and I don't know how, seeing it's just water in the cooker) the cookers safety popoff is already designed to blow long before the cooker would fail.
There's more than one way to skin a cat (metaphorically speaking). As long as your air compressor can't put out more air than the pressure relief valve can release your approach would be fine. In fact, your way is simpler, but, being paranoid, I'd worry about losing the relief valve weighted thingy. Also, since (due to my frazzled nerves) running compressors are really aggravating, the less the compressor runs, the happier I am. Since I'm familiar and comfortable with the other stuff, that's what I used. Everything is permanently attached and impossible to lose. I have, in fact, gathered some parts to allow me to fill up the cooker completely with water, attach the compressor, and do exactly what you suggest although I have a pressure switch that will cut the compressor out at 15psi. I picked up the switch years ago at a surplus store and figured one day I'd have a use for it. Now I do, ha.
I just want to remind folks, IMHO, that one should ALWAYS heat the water with the lid off, test for appropriate temperature, and then put the lid on and pressurize and shower. Burns HURT and no effort to avoid them is overkill.
As a plus the pressure cooker makes a good dishpan and you can reheat the dishwater at will. Multifunction!
Go for it and by all means "have it your way".
Cheers,
Gus