by BubbaRHC » Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:47 pm
Used my new water heater this weekend. Did a weekend road bicycle event at FDR State Park in Georgia. Was a very cold weekend - had snow Saturday morning from 6:30am until 11:00am - the real stuff not just flurries. Took a nice long shower Saturday night - outside temps in the mid 30's. Used the Outback Privy see my original post for links. The water heater performed flawless. It has a unique feature - once you turn the switch on, nothing happens except the heater is enabled to go on.
On the hand held shower nozzle, there is a water on off option. Once water flows, the self igniter on the unit engages, the propane ignites, and in about 2 seconds, there is hot water to your desired temperature. I preset the temp outside the shower to what I wanted, then shutoff the water flow at the shower head. Then once inside, turned on the water flow, and the temperature was exactly as I set it a few minutes before.
The nozzle has three flow options, one is a pulsed jet, one a standard jet, and one more high pressure mist. I used the last option to "steam up" the privy, so the temperature in the privy was comfortable considering the near freezing outside temp. Took about a 15 minute shower and stayed extremely warm. The advertising states about 18 hours of shower capability on a 20 pound lp tank.
No electric is needed (or recharge batteries). The unit takes 2 d cells that only function to power the igniter. Water input takes a standard garden hose and uses the campground water pressure for the shower. The unit also has a valve to drain the water from the unit when you go to pack it away. I store it in a plastic bin in the teardrop. When you shutoff the water (for those military shower buffs), the flame goes out until you turn the shower head back on, then the ignitor clicks into gear again starting the whole process. This way you can save both water and propane as both are shutoff by the shower head valve!
Last edited by
BubbaRHC on Thu Apr 10, 2008 11:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.