Camp Shower

I love camping. Car camping in state parks, backpacking in wilderness areas, canvas tents at curry village. My wife never camped before she met me. For her camping is all-things not joyful in life combined into one activity, but she still comes with us because she knows how much my son and I enjoy it. I try to identify the pain points for her and make things better without resorting to glamping, which is a bastardized camping experience at 4-star resort prices.

Pain Points

• its cold (mitigation: Sea to Summit Trek TKII sleeping bag)
• its hot
• its tough to sleep on the floor (mitigation: Coleman ComfortSmart cot)
• dangerous annoying creatures such as mosquitos, snakes, raccoons
• it’s dusty, the inside of the tent gets dirty (mitigation: Black & Decker cordless handheld vacuum)
• the meals are unhealthy, lots of bbq meat, not much fruit or vegetables
• it gets smokey
• have to wake up early
• no private clean toilet and showers

The last one, private toilet and showers, is the most challenging and the most important to solve. The toilet problem is intractable until someone invents a device that can compress poop into charcoal or vaporize it with solar powered lasers. Providing a private hot shower at the end of the day to wash away the smoke, bugs, dust seemed possible. Last year we used solar shower bags with a shower tent.

You fill one or more solar bags with 5 gallons of water, leave it in the sun for several hours and then hang it in the shower tent and let gravity pull the water out of the spout.

The solar shower bag experience is ok. Its better than wet wipes, but it is a cumbersome experience to lug around 5lbs of water and finding a sunny spot to heat it up. This year, I wanted to see if I can do better with a propane on-demand hot water shower. There are existing camp shower systems like the joolca hot water system:

The joolca is nicely designed, is a perfect size for camping, and has a reasonable cost. But could this be done as a DIY project? I found this site: https://www.revereoverland.com/shower. Seems like a fun project; water pumps, water heaters, soldering. Let’s do it.

Materials

• Camplux 5L 1.32 GPM hot water heater
• Camplux 12V water pump – pressurizes the water for the water heater if you are using a bucket of water
• Inline water filter – filters the incoming water before it gets to the water pump
• SAE connector cable
• SAE cigarette lighter cable
• 3/8″ ID vinyl tubing – to connect the water source to water filter to water pump to water heater
• 3/8″ tube clamps
• (optional) 14 gallon water storage container
• Flame King 5lbs propane tank – small propane tank to save space
• Jackery Explorer 240Wh portable battery – power the water pump
• Plano 56Qt storage box
• chicken wire
• (optional) Joolca shower head

Tools

• soldering iron – to solder the water pump power lines to SAE connector
• Dewalt Cordless drill – drill the holes for the mounting the water pump
• Yellow Jacket digital torque wrench – for securing the propane line to water heater

Purchase Decisions

hot water heater

I got the camplux 1.2GPM, because i wanted a small profile to fit in a box and a low gallons per minute since the water may be drawing from a 5 gallon bucket. It also had reviews of people trying it at high altitude and working fine. i will update this post after the bass lake trip (elevation: 3000 ft)

shower head

the shower head that comes with the camplux is workable, but the joolca shower head has some great design features and can be purchased separately from the joolca shower system. The head can swivel and point down so there is more options on how it can be mounted. It comes with a magnetic holder so you could mount it on the side of a car. The on/off switch is lower on the hose, so can be accessed by kids.

portable battery

can either power the water pump with car battery via ciergatte lighter. but i wanted more flexibility in where to place the tent. the best place may not be near the car and i didn’t want to be limited. when it went on sale I bought the jackery. plus it can be used for other things – power a small fan, mosquito repellant.

water storage container

I got a couple of 5 gallon buckets. I plan to use one of the buckets to refill the water for the other.

For longer showers I found a used gasoline storage container on nextdoor for $20. I cleaned it out with vinegar, detergent, hot water. It holds 14 gallons. But it is quite bulky and will take up a lot of space in the car and I still haven’t been able to completely remove the gasoline smell, so I decided to go with the buckets.

propane tank

I have the 15lbs propane tank, but got the 5lbs because wanted something smaller to bring around. The drawback is that you can’t do propane exchange, you will need to find a place to refill it. There is a gas station and a uhaul that does propane tank refills.

shower tent

There are one room and two room shower tents. The two room is nice because the changing room stays dry and isolated from the shower area by a zip up door. There are also some nice quality of life features included with the shower tent to help organize your towels, potions and lotions.

Installation

Installing the water heater

Put the hot water heater in the storage box. The reason for putting the water heater in the storage box is so that the water filter, water pump and all the tubes and wires and shower head can be transported in the box.

Use the mounting bracket to screw the water heater to the storage box. I added some wood blocks (see picture above) on the bottom of the water heater to keep it stable. Install the batteries in the water heater before you put it into the box. The battery is to generate the spark to light up the propane gas.

I cut out a hole at the bottom for the for hot water out (the red connector in the middle) if you don’t want to bend the hose.

It is required to cut out vents in the box to allow the heat to escape. I covered the vents with chicken wire. I attached the chicken wire using duct tape. Will need to upgrade the duct tape to something more durable in the future.

The top of the water heater also has a vent. Make sure the storage box allows heat to escape.

At the campsite there will be running water from a spigot. I plan to fill up the water storage container with 14 gallons of water and then roll it back to the campsite. The bottom of the storage tank there is a spigot so i attached quick connect hose adaptor.

The other end of the vinyl tube connects to the water filter.

Then connect the water filter to the water pump. The water pump will keep the water at a certain pressure for the water heater to work. The water pump takes 12v to operate.

Solder the SAE connector to the power lines of the water pump.

The SAE is a quick connect that can then be connected to the cigarette lighter cable. Then the cigarette lighter can be plugged into your car cigarette lighter or the Jackery portable battery.

Finally connect the tube from the water pump to the right water intake. Then connect the right gas line to propane tank.

You need a torque wrench to connect the gas line to the water heater, follow the instructions on how much torque to use.

Connect the gas line to the propane tank

Connect the joolca shower head to the hot water out. And attach the other end to the top of the shower tent.

1. Fill up the water container
2. Turn on the water pump
3. Turn on the propane gas
4. Turn on the hot water on the shower head

Testing

If the water runs out the water heater will automatically stop. If there are any leaks in your system you will know because the water pump will continue to work to pump in more water even when the shower is turned off.

One drawback is that the water pump is quite loud. The water is pumping out at 1.2 gallons per minute. The 14 gallon tank can last at least 10 minutes. If I can find a water source, like a river, then could run the shower for as long as there is propane and electricity.

Update 7/04/2021

We used the camp shower at Bass Lake (elevation: 3400 ft), California. There were two families, 4 adults and 3 kids.

Some notes on the experience:

• The water pressure is not strong. There wasn’t enough water pressure for my wife to feel comfortable washing her hair with shampoo. I don’t use shampoo, so i didn’t notice it. There is a water flow knob that could have been turned up if i had known earlier. But wanted to keep the water flow low so that the showers lasted longer.
• Make sure to bring a standard screwdriver to tighten all the vinyl clamps, otherwise the water pump won’t work.
• Tip: attach weights on the intake so that the tube drops to the bottom of the bucket and stays there

• The water pump is loud if you are near the pump. I put the cover loosely on the water heater box and the noise was not noticeable fro the next campsite.
• Didn’t get a chance to measure the duration of the 5 gallon bucket shower.
• It was 100 degrees at bass lake. I brought the solar shower bag just in case some people wanted to have an ambient temp shower. I didn’t heat up the solar shower bag, but hung it in the tent. It provided a nice alternative to the hot shower.