Camping shower review

[GregB]

Over the 4th I went camping in the High Uintas here in Utah and took my Coleman Hot Water heater and Cabela's shower enclosure for a first spin. The shower enclosure is well-constructed and worked like a champ. It went up easily and the pack bag is roomy enough that you don't have to have a Masters Degree from the Origami Institute to get everything back in there. As a bonus, it turns out there is plenty of room for two in there.
The Coleman receives mainly positive reviews with a couple of caveats. The biggest complaint that I have from a shower standpoint is the fact that you have to turn the water off and on at the unit, not at the showerhead. Turning the knob starts both the heater and the water pump simultaneously. 5 seconds or so later warm to hot water comes out. We ended up putting it just outside the shower and sticking a hand out the window to turn the water off and on. Fine for me, but my wife was less interested in flashing passers-by as the window is chest-high. So, dummy, put it in the shower enclosure you say; well, the shower hose is barely 48" long and I didn't want to put a small table in the enclosure with me. Other issues were that the water heat fluctuated somewhat during the second of three showers. Also the attachment of the feed pump into the unit leaked and dripped a bit. All that taken into consideration, we had showers! It was fantastic to get clean and worth the fuss.
I am building the heater into a space to the left of my sink in the galley so hot water will be convenient. I plan on putting the shower just outside the left of the galley and attaching the showerhead when it's bathing time. I will have to modify the showerhead feed tube so it is much longer and either have a helping hand on the water control or find some sort of modification for a remote start/stop.

Making camping better a step at a time,

GB

[Chris C]

Isn't that Cabella's enclosure great? I think it will be great to have it out in the wilds. Real privacy and plenty of room. I have the same Coleman unit, GB. I haven't used it yet, but plan on removing and replacing the shower hose with a longer one. It's just vinyl tubing. Our idea was to use it to heat up a small bucket of water and step into the shower enclosure to bathe. The have someone on the outside turn on the heater/water from the outside to rinse with. It's the only solution we could come up with.

[sunny16]

I haven't looked real close but do the Cabela's shower enclosures have a bottom? If so, what happens to the water?

I need something like that for both shower and potty use.

[GregB]

Ahh, that's the genius of it. There is a bottom but the edges around the sides and the back are a 4 inch wide mesh. Put it up on a small slope and put the door on the uphill side. Slick.

Greg

[PresTx82]

What other hot water devices have the members of this forum used that they could give their review on?

[Laredo]

stovetop water heater:

go to the (wholesale!!!) bakery in your town that does pies.
Buy one of the 5-gallon pails the cherries come in. Take it home and remove all labels, then wash thoroughly inside and out.

Fill it half full, bring to a boil, add a half gallon of cold water and an Oklahoma credit card with a pinch valve ...

this was not for camping. this was in 1986, for the house I shared with my kid brother. The water heater rusted out on a Tuesday ... eleven days before payday.

The five-gallon pail cost 50 cents, the pinch valve and hose were $2.89. The stove, we already had ...

[CHUCKLEHEAD69]

just a idea for a remote swicth use a pressure switch like on those industral drain snakes. its just a special switch with hose with a small rubber air bladder on the end so when u stand on it it holds the switch on.you will have to stand on it while u shower but it beats reaching out of the shower

[Jiminsav]

here ya go..old idea made new.this here puppy will heat up some water by just sitting in the sun all afternoon.
used the same concept in the army, but it was a canvas bag, and the water was in a 5 gallon black water can, and i can tell you it got plenty hot.
here's a pic.

[PresTx82]

That's what we use, Jim. Short, sweet and simple. Not too much water in the bag, so you have to wash up with the soap really fast and rinse off quick.

There's something about showering out in the woods all "natural". Swinging in the breeze if you will.

The only problem it's only good for one shower a night unless you shower one person in the day and the other later on...! It takes time to heat up the bag!

[Dale M.]

While we tent camp for now ... TD is "under construction".... We use a privacy shelter by just suspending some black poly sheeting from some tree branches (rope & clothes pins) .... And we have a 5 gallon metal (paint) bucket we suspend from a tree limb, with a 1/8 pipe thread bung welded into side and a kitchen sink spray head and hose attached... We heat about 2.5 gallons of water in metal bucket on campfire (or Colman stove) and temper it with about 2 gallons of cold water all poured into "shower bucket"...BE SURE TO CHECK TEMPERATURE SO NOBODY GETS SCALDED... Usually two people get a pretty good shower with this.... Also use biodegradable soap to protect wilderness...

Another idea somebody mentioned on another site a while back was using a 3-4 gallon stainless steel garden sprayer as a pressure vessel to power shower.... Fill sprayer with hot water, a few pumps.... Of course hose and spray head from kitchen sink would probably be better than wand that comes with sprayer...

Dale

[gailkaitschuck]

I really like the Sun Shower (same as what Jim posted) when we go out to our land. My biggest challenge is hauling the five pounds of water high enough to catch a limb on a tree. It's heavy!

Usually I sit on a cooler that's in the outdoor "bathroom" (a couple of tarps hooked up around some trees), wet down, turn the water off, lather up and then rinse off. There's more than enough water for two showers (even with hair washing) that way.

We also have a Zodi hot water shower that we got from ebay that we'll use when the weather gets too cold to heat the Sun Shower out in the open meadow.

Gail

[PresTx82]

One gallon of water is eight pounds!

[Dean in Eureka, CA]

I contacted the folks at Zodi, with hopes of them coming to the IRG and setting up a field unit for us. They wanted me to contact them right before the event and give them an aproximate head count... apparently, we didn't have enough heads, 'cause they never got back to me...
I ended up getting the Coleman unit at the last minute and it served our needs very well, although Steve E. and myself did get zapped with cold water because of low battery, but this thing was used a lot.
I knew ahead of time, that there was a faucet close by to where we had it set up, so I bought the additional hose pump.
Unfortunately, there wasn't enough water pressure at Pamplin Grove to get the hose pump to work, so I switched it to the siphon pump that comes with the unit. I placed the unit on a table and situated it right next to the shower stall. Three simple slices of a razor blade, allowed me to make a flap opening into the stall, so that the control knob was configured just like a normal shower stall on the wall of the stall. One more tiny slice with the razor blade gave me an access hole in the stall, to insert the shower hose.
It would have been nice, if the shower hose would have been a foot or two longer, but it was just long enough to hang the shower head from a holder fashioned out of a piece of brazing rod.
We strung up two simple tarps and a shower curtain adjacent to the stall opening, so that folks had a changing room.
Didn't have any complaints, just rave reviews... Especially from the folks who showered, right after recieving one of Joanie's massages.

I wish I would've thought to get a few pictures of it... Darn it.

[asianflava]

I was going to take a picture of it but every time I went over there, somebody was in it. I didn't want to get the "creepy guy by the shower" label.

The shower worked like a champ, the water tub could have been closer to the spigot though. Filling the tub was a 2 person job: one to hold the hose, another to hold the faucet.

[Dean in Eureka, CA]

Rock,
You took your shower too early...
After the first day, we realized that we bought way too much bottled water, so we stopped using the faucet and showered with bottled stuff.