# Man, I could use a nice hot shower...



## Spice (Dec 21, 2014)

...but at the BOL that's going to be a problem. We have a cabin. It will have electricity of some sort, and we're thinking rain cachement (pond is our backup water supply) from the roof of the cabin and the roof of the outbuilding we're planning. A composting toilet should take care of that element of hygeine, and we've got a hand-washing type basin arrangement worked out.

Bathing has me rather stuck. What clever ideas have you all seen that might address this need that don't require piped water, a big power drain, or septic system?

Thanks for your time!


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## Arklatex (May 24, 2014)

You need propane for this but it is an option.

http://www.hotcampshowers.com/zodi_propane_water_heaters


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## Arklatex (May 24, 2014)

The solar showers are ok in the summertime. Also if you leave a black garden hose in the sun all day you have a small supply of hot water there.


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## Smitty901 (Nov 16, 2012)

Hot water heaters that attach to wood burning furnaces or ovens . The range for really cool to simple copper coils.


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## wesley762 (Oct 23, 2012)

When we camp we just heat up some water on the fire and use hot wet towels, works pretty good for us. Its not a hot shower but pretty darn close.


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

what about a hot sauna instead of a hot shower?

once you get the sauna going nice and hot, you can fill the room with steam with a spong and a bucket of water.


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## James m (Mar 11, 2014)

I have seen the propane water heaters also.
You put this one on a camp fire, and the water gravity feeds through the pipe. Have never used one, but looks interesting. Dont need propane and you will already have a heat source going in cold weather.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Zodi8482-Outback-Gear-Fire-Coil/1436318.uts?


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## Arklatex (May 24, 2014)

Smitty901 said:


> Hot water heaters that attach to wood burning furnaces or ovens . The range for really cool to simple copper coils.


Here is a simple setup that you could use with a camp showerhead once you heat the water. The same setup could be used if you simply put the coil into a camp fire.


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## Stick (Sep 29, 2014)

I had a shower in May last year. Had to go to a wedding, so availed myself of the facilities. Last three years, tho...in summer I leave a black five gallon bucket of water out and let it warm up. Usually by mid afternoon it's ready. I use a canteen cup to wet and rinse with. I also have a bucket with a little shower spigot that I use sometimes, but it just kinda dribbles out so don't really use it much. Water comes from the roof when it rains, snows or even a heavy frost. I've used the propane stove top to heat water, and also, now that it's colder, the wood stove. I don't have running water, so can't really (I don't think) use one of those commercial propane water heaters. Seems one might be able to make one that works for lots less money...maybe a solar powered aquarium pump, black water containers, etc. Gonna go into town later today and watch The Game, so a bucket of water is heating on the stove. When my ship comes in, I look forward to buying a relatively small metal stock tank for taking long hot baths in. In the 70's I had an old claw foot iron tub mounted on cinder blocks. Use to fill it up with water from the crick and build a fire under it. You could get the whole family in there, just like a Idi Amin hot tub. Done with the bath? Build the fire back up and toss in some veggies.


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

Smitty901 said:


> Hot water heaters that attach to wood burning furnaces or ovens . The range for really cool to simple copper coils.


The technology may have improved but back when I worked installing wood stoves we had a lot of problems with the heating coil inside the stove developing leaks after a year or two from the uneven and often extreme temperatures inside a wood stove. Back then there were only t manufactures that offered this option and both leaked with time.


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## haydukeprepper (Apr 28, 2013)

Arklatex said:


> The solar showers are ok in the summertime. Also if you leave a black garden hose in the sun all day you have a small supply of hot water there.


55 gallon plastic drum painted black. Warm showers for two people every afternoon!


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## Smitty901 (Nov 16, 2012)

Hot shower and endless hot water something I learned to cherish in the Army. that was figured into our STHF life style we will have hot showers.


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## Dubyagee (Nov 9, 2012)

Composting water heaters can heat your home, make hot showers and heat up to a gallon a minute to 140 degrees. All from a 6' by 6' pile. Plans are online.


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

Are you going to designate a small area in your cabin or build a separate bathroom remote from the cabin? Regardless, I would improvise a rain catchment system that ends up in an inexpensive short bodied Propane Water Heater. You'll have to improvise an Overflow Valve of some sort that shuts off water to the tank and diverts it to another holding tank as a back up. 

In the shower area, you can then build a platform as high as you can so that you can gravity feed the water from the water heater to the person showering or into a tub. Then you can drain it from the tub outside as gray water, never into you septic system. 

I've seen Propane 30 gallon Water heaters for around $400 but add to that the cost of installing and filling a large 500 gallon Propane Tank outside if you don't have one.


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

I have one of these Army shower buckets: U s Military Issue Collapsible 5 Gallon Shower Pail Canvas OD Green | eBay

It works pretty good. Just fill it up with warm water, twist the bottom to turn the water on.


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

Look on eBay for 12v shower and a but load of these pop up: New Portable Shower 12V Runs Off Batteries or Car Cigarette Lighter | eBay


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## Spice (Dec 21, 2014)

Slippy said:


> Are you going to designate a small area in your cabin or build a separate bathroom remote from the cabin? Regardless, I would improvise a rain catchment system that ends up in an inexpensive short bodied Propane Water Heater. You'll have to improvise an Overflow Valve of some sort that shuts off water to the tank and diverts it to another holding tank as a back up.
> 
> In the shower area, you can then build a platform as high as you can so that you can gravity feed the water from the water heater to the person showering or into a tub. Then you can drain it from the tub outside as gray water, never into you septic system.
> 
> I've seen Propane 30 gallon Water heaters for around $400 but add to that the cost of installing and filling a large 500 gallon Propane Tank outside if you don't have one.


We're thinking separate shower house. Cabin is on the top of the hill, so the shower house would be be downhill from that (and the semi-nearby composter is but a short walk from where we'll probably keep the toilet in the summer). I'm hoping to produce the greywater at a slightly higher elevation than some of the fruit trees...


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## Prepadoodle (May 28, 2013)

I'm thinking rocket stove here. They don't take much fuel, and the exhaust flue temperatures in a well designed rocket stove will be less than 100 degrees. At these low temperatures, it would be possible to wrap the stove pipe with PEX tubing like they use in radiant heating systems. (PEX will handle 200 degrees and 160 psi)

If you had enough tubing, you could probably make this an "on demand" type system instead of trying to store hot water. A small solar panel, battery, and small pump would complete the system.


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## Prepadoodle (May 28, 2013)

OK, now you got me thinking here. Expand the idea time.

Rainwater catchment to an elevated barrel. From there, the water gravity feeds down a coil on the exhaust stack of the rocket stove, heating as it goes. It then flows up to a small "accumulation" bucket hooked to the shower. Yes, it will flow up as long as the bucket is lower than the storage tank.

If you are building a separate bath house, you will need to heat the structure anyway, right? Might as well use the byproduct heat to heat the water. This version would have no moving parts except for 2 valves. The first would let water flow from the storage tank, through the coil, and to the (insulated?) shower bucket. So you stoke up a small fire, and open this first valve. By the time the shower tank fills up, the bath house is warm and you are ready to go.

Now open the second valve and take that shower.

You probably wouldn't need to light a fire in warm weather. Air temperature water would get you clean too, and it would cool you off at the same time.

One potential problem is that the stored cold water would freeze in the winter. I don't think this would burst the PEX, but you would have to do something to prevent this. Maybe put the storage tank right over the rocket stove?


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## Chipper (Dec 22, 2012)

Heat water on the wood stove. Water from snow, rain barrel or pond/creek. Dump water into bucket with spigot in bottom. Hang in tree, close line, anywhere, yes even in the winter on a warm day.

100 years ago that's how it was done. Worked great for thousands of years. Heck 20 years ago that's what we did camping if the lake water was to cold. WHY does everyone need a solar pump and propane heater?? Gravity is free.


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## Tennessee (Feb 1, 2014)

We use an Eccotemp hot water shower when we go camping and it works great. Hook up a water pump and tank and your good to go.


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## Maine-Marine (Mar 7, 2014)

Smitty901 said:


> Hot water heaters that attach to wood burning furnaces or ovens . The range for really cool to simple copper coils.


Had one of these as a kid...


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## Maine-Marine (Mar 7, 2014)

Use the old two person shower system with buckets... heat the water in buckets make sure it is not too hot and you can even have a off and on


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## 1skrewsloose (Jun 3, 2013)

If your shower is not out in the frigid cold, or even if it is, get wet, soap up, rinse off. None of these 30 minute showers my daughter takes.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 25, 2014)

I was just looking at a small on-demand water heater the other day. They make little units that plug into the wall, up to big units that draw a half inch gas line. If you have minimal electricity, then you could prolly muster the energy for a weekly shower. Check out some of these units:

https://www.google.com/search?q=on+...93&ie=UTF-8#q=on+demand+water+heater&tbm=shop

I wonder if you could run one of these off of a dual battery UPS?


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## csi-tech (Apr 13, 2013)

This was an idea I kicked around for a while. It just isn't that cold down here. If I had a BOL in Minnesota, this would be essential in the winter. This is some info I found on it. Great for a long, wintertime hot shower.

Vehicle-Mounted Hot Camp Shower

If you have a water-cooled vehicle, then this system can be for you. The basic principle is to use your vehicle’s engine-heated water to heat the camp shower. A heat exchanger is permanently installed in your vehicle and connected to the engine cooling/heating system. From any water source (bucket, campsite tap or a lake), cold water is pumped into the heat exchanger.

Simultaneously, hot water from the engine is sent to the heat exchanger, which then absorbs the heat from the engine water and transfers it to the cold water pumped from your campsite. The heated water is then sent to the showerhead and voila! UNLIMITED hot camp shower!

Good: Unlimited, hot water for portable camping showers. Convenient, little to no set-up required.

Bad: Pricey (at least $300 + gas used by an idling vehicle).


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 25, 2014)

That's actually pretty cool. if you are bugged out on the road.

The slow-turn generators that Radius Engineering uses in their awesome bunkers are capable of heating water for the bunker in their cooling jacket. Saves having to run the secondary heating device since you will prolly be running the generator much of the time anyhow.

radiusengineering.com


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

csi-tech said:


> This was an idea I kicked around for a while. It just isn't that cold down here. If I had a BOL in Minnesota, this would be essential in the winter. This is some info I found on it. Great for a long, wintertime hot shower.
> 
> Vehicle-Mounted Hot Camp Shower
> 
> ...


Pretty good idea, if you shower after a trip into town and back, then the shower is FREE.


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## James m (Mar 11, 2014)

The hot water dispenser on a water fountain, just the parts. The computer ups batteries are designed to run a PC for 10-15 minutes and take a day to charge. The ones you can buy at best buy anyway. The last time my hot water heater went out I just put the soap in the water, instead of the water. Seems like less cold shock.


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

Couple of big pots on the woodstove when its cold, black solar tank when its warm.

Grey water system for the shower and sink.

Couple of 5-gal buckets to gravity feed the shower and sink.


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## Stick (Sep 29, 2014)

Prep, your invention reminded me of some old friends in Montana, long gone now. They had a wood stove intricately wrapped in copper tubing and I don't know exactly how it worked but after a long day horseback it was wonderful to sink into a nice deep hot tub heated with wood, tub from a 8' diameter galvanized stock tank. This was on a concrete slab of an attached greenhouse. Stayed warm even in Montana's winters, what with the concrete slab storing up heat, and incidentally stove heating water for hot tubbing. A few strategically placed decorative boulders and rock piles absorbed and released heat, too. The guy was growing bananas in there. Unbelievable.


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## bigwheel (Sep 22, 2014)

Spice said:


> ...but at the BOL that's going to be a problem. We have a cabin. It will have electricity of some sort, and we're thinking rain cachement (pond is our backup water supply) from the roof of the cabin and the roof of the outbuilding we're planning. A composting toilet should take care of that element of hygeine, and we've got a hand-washing type basin arrangement worked out.
> 
> Bathing has me rather stuck. What clever ideas have you all seen that might address this need that don't require piped water, a big power drain, or septic system?
> 
> Thanks for your time!


My Grandma was real fond of what she called "spit baths." That just takes one pan of water a wash rag a bar of soap and a towel or maybe a cleanish tow sack. Real popular in cold weather among the old time seasoned citizens. This link tells about it I think. 
Sponge Bath: Keep Clean Without Running Water - Nature Community - MOTHER EARTH NEWS


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## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

Bucket shower. Can't beat it. We used them overseas but I haven't seen anything like them here. Basically it is a galvanized bucket - maybe 3 gallons with a shower head on the bottom. You fill the bucket with nice warm water and hoist it up with a rope attached to the handle. There is a pulley on the ceiling. Pull the bucket up, tie the rope to a handle on the side of the wall. Twist the shower head under the bucket to turn it on. Get wet and twist off. Wash and shampoo, and then twist on for the rinse. It's pretty amazing how little water you can use this way and still get a great shower. I need to find one, because I'd like it for a backup shower.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cek6_X4i368/UDTTKjeBDrI/AAAAAAAAHoU/zcZ21NMmRBE/s1600/DSC_0105.jpg

The ones we used had a flatter, wider shower head and it didn't hang down so low below the bucket, but you get the idea.


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## Stick (Sep 29, 2014)

Yeah, I used to have one of those canvas buckets with the shower head on bottom. But uh...I don't recollect it could be shut off. IIRC one had to get in under it and done quick. I wonder if, after all these years, I just didn't know about that feature (LOL). I took a new-to-me Marlin out to plink one day with some handloads and a Winchester, both 30-30's. The handloads worked fine in the Winchester but the Marlin wouldn't fire them. Disappointed, I figured the firing pin was broke, or I'd seated primers just a little too deep for a little bit short Marlin firing pin. Put it back in the safe and didn't fire it for the longest time. Years. Found some factory ammo and it liked them fine. About then I discovered the dang cross bolt safety. Whoever heard of a cb safety on an exposed hammer lever gun with half-cock notch? Not me. But I digress...times like those I wonder how in the world I ever managed to live this long.


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## Sasquatch (Dec 12, 2014)

I'm thinking some type of metal container overhead with a way to burn wood or some fuel underneath. Then a chain to release the water from a spigot. Rustic but would work.


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