Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I'm working on building a teardrop for various camping situations and trying to come up with a suitable water/shower system. It will be used for 2-3 day trips and some will be at established campgrounds with facilities so the shower won't always be needed. I'm trying to keep it simple, light, and cheap. I'm thinking of this mounted on the tongue, easy complete system to take on and off. The sprayer wand could be shortened for washing dishes and a quick connect fitting added for attaching the shower.

http://t.harborfreight.com/12-volt-15-g ... 61263.html

I will be running a standard Coleman propane stove for cooking, and was thinking about using a heat exchanger that would sit on top of it for a shower. I have a couple of old dirt bike radiators that may work with a ball valve to control the flow/temperature. Basically you would have to connect the exchanger/shower, set it on the stove and get it hot, then open the ball valve until it flowed through to get the temperature you desire. Faster flow, more water, faster, cooler. Slower flow, less water, more slowly, hotter. You couldn't shut it on and off during use or it could scald you, but that's ok. Sound concept or is there a reason it wouldn't work?

The level of complexity in trying to regulate temperature. I would think you would be effort ahead to use the heat exchanger to heat the volume of water to the desired temperature. You can use a 12 solar heater pump to circulate the water.

Shadow Catcher wrote:The level of complexity in trying to regulate temperature. I would think you would be effort ahead to use the heat exchanger to heat the volume of water to the desired temperature. You can use a 12 solar heater pump to circulate the water.

Shadow Catcher is correct in the concept of trying to regulate temperature, it's a little more complex than it sounds with a Coleman stove.

If you do try to regulate flow, use a globe valve instead of a ball valve, as that's exactly what they are built for to regulate and fine tune flow.

Let us know what works for you.

Simplest and best system is still 3-5 gallon hand pump up stainless steel sprayer tank, remove wand that comes with it and replace with sink sprayer hose and head..... Just heat water on stove and mix with cool water to get temp correct... Follow the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid)... Remember this is camping...

Similar to this manufactured unit...



DIY....





2 gallon metal bucket on camp stove or camp fire heats enough water, plus cool water to mix for temperature makes enough water for two people to shower...

Dale

I painted a new/unused Garden Sprayer with some Black Paint I had around. You can see a few scuffs of the original Orange on the Sprayer.

With some 'Astrofoil' behind it acting as a Reflector, it heated up passively to make for a nice Shower after Lunch. Due to the fine Mist Spray coming out, the Water cooled in Air. So, I had to let it heat up higher than expected [~110 F Degrees]. As seen on the Radio Shack Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer in back, the Water was already ~70 F Degrees in the morning on a ~40 F Degree day. I got 2 'generous' Showers out of 1 fill.

The Garden Sprayer Plastic is a good ~1/4" thick, and withstood 'lots' of Hand-pumped pressure. Cost = free.

------

We have the Zodi propane camp shower, it pumps the water through a copper coil heat exchanger over the burner, and up to a shower head. We found the best way to get the perfect temp was to recirculate the heated water back into the 5 gallon bucket while we got our things together. By then the bucket full of water was just right, we shut off the burner and took a perfect shower just using the pump. The two of us got showers from one bucket full.
If you make your own heat exchanger, recirculate the water until your tank hits the temp you want, shut the flame off and shower away.