Who has a Portable Hot Water shower? Lets see them

[lacofdfireman]

I recently bought the Ecotemp L5 portable Propane Hot water shower that I plan on putting on the outside of my Off Road style trailer. I'm not sure if I should permanently affix it to the outside or if I should just make a mount to hang it on when using. I'd like to see how some of you have done your exterior showers on your teardrops. Specifically how you have plumbed for it and how and where you set it up. Pics are worth a thousand words. Lets see what you got and how you did it..

[H.A.]

If.

[JaggedEdges]

it bugs you if its all been cleared.

I wouldn't let it bug me, 95% of it out should be good enough, where the damage occurs is where the water has no expansion room, say an inch remains in the bottom loop of a thin bore pipe, it should have plenty of room to move up and down the pipe, air to compress, it would get a bit iffy if 6" were full at the bottom of a loop, because even though ice slippy the middle of it has to shove 3" of it up the tube to expand, but small amounts should be able to expand freely.

[Mushin]

I have the triton 5l hot water setup, I think the same one you are talking about. I debated mounting it to the side of my trailer in a enclosure as well. What I decided was to mount the it and the pump in a pelican an case. This makes it portable so I can hang the whole case from the trailer, a tree, shower tent, whatever I want. Same hook up as if it were permanently on the side but now movable.

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[lacofdfireman]

I have the triton 5l hot water setup, I think the same one you are talking about. I debated mounting it to the side of my trailer in a enclosure as well. What I decided was to mount the it and the pump in a pelican an case. This makes it portable so I can hang the whole case from the trailer, a tree, shower tent, whatever I want. Same hook up as if it were permanently on the side but now movable.

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Got pics of it setup anywhere? I'd love to see it hanging. And what did you hang it from on the trailer? And where do you keep your hookup hose?

[Woodbutcher]

I just installed this. If you have a 2007 or newer Jeep Wrangler, you can use the rear bumper for water storage. It hold about 7 gallons of water. An RV pump goes in the Jeep behind the tail light. The black bumper heats the water up nicely. Also good for putting out a campfire, doing dishes, or anything but drinking.

The kit comes from http://www.jeepkarma.com or youtube Aqua Bumper

[daveesl77]

I've had a couple of the Triton 5L (very similar to the Ecotemp). My original I permanently mounted on the back wall of my slide-in truck camper. I had it set to where there was about a 1/4" standoff from the outer wall and made a flip-up aluminum cabinet to cover it when traveling or in heavy rain/snow. It was directly plumbed into the camper water system.

My present one is detachable. My entire galley slides out of a compartments and does this "transformer" thing where parts of the galley rotate and other parts flip over. The water heate rides in a compartment next to my galley, then when I want to use it, I have stand-off mounted on the galley side next to the stove top. I just pull it out of the compartment, drop it down onto the stand-offs. Then the stove and heater are next to each other and share the propane tank. Water lines all have quick connects, so it easily links into the internal pump water system, the campsite water system (if avail) and the sink and shower head. I made an exterior shower/toilet/changing room from the remains of a ezup canopy.

The part I'm building now is the add-on to allow it to run the hotwater cabin heater by using recirculating system running through an aluminum car heater core, a secondary pump with non-pressurized tank. My prototype with this was amazing, since it raised the water temp from 50 F to 150 F is about 90 seconds. I have high-low temp sensors that I got from China for about $8, this turns the heater on and off. The heater normally uses 2 "D" cell batteries to fire the system up, I replaced these with a switched system that can link up to my 12v system (using $4 pvm to reduce voltage from 12 to 3.3v) . I have a digital thermostat I had stored in my garage that turns the secondary pump on/off. Secondary pump came from an RV salvage yard for almost nothing. Thermostat says "time for heat", the secondary pump starts, heater core fans start and hot water heater starts. Water recirculates, increasing at a rate of about 15 degrees for every 8 seconds of operation. At 150 the high limit turns off the water heater, but the fan and pump stay running, circulating the water held in a non-pressurized tank. If internal temp doesn't rise to point where thermostat shuts everything down, then low temp water sensor refires the heater. Once cabin temp is proper, then everything shuts off. The heater system is isolated from the main water system.

dave

[Mushin]

I don't have any pics and a buddy of mine is using my water setup in Canada for a few weeks.
Pretty simple tho, I got a Pelican case that is big enough to hold heater and pump, little smaller then the box it came in actually. Then mounted heater down with 1/2 standoff, plumbed the pump and heater, when I get to camp I pull the case out and hang it with paracord I attached to case and drop hose into jerry can and hook up propane, all the hoses fit wrapped up in the case.
As far as hanging on trailer, I hook it over an led light I have mounted on side of trailer. I suppose u could just use a hook or screw or whatever to hang it from, but the light was already solidly mounted so win win.
If I want to mount it to a tree or something else I use rope or some other ff engineering!

U can see led light above awning mount, I use one on other side cause it's closer to stove.

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[JaggedEdges]

The part I'm building now is the add-on to allow it to run the hotwater cabin heater by using recirculating system running through an aluminum car heater core, a secondary pump with non-pressurized tank.

Now my worry with that is mixed metals with tap water is corrosion issues, between the plumbing parts and that heatercore. I have loads of "experts" tell me "Oh tap water is fine in the car cooling system"... and replace their rads and heatercores every 3-5 years... while I tend to get a decade+ using distilled or premix (Only kept one car quite that long, replaced rad soon after I got it, had to replace it 11 years later because it rotted from the outside, still tight but all the fins fell off....) Anyway, I'd not expect it to last as long as you'd like.

[daveesl77]

Jagged, please don't take this wrong, but I've been working on cars since the 1960s, mostly as a hobby, but I pretty much do all of my repairs and maintenance. I have never in my life put distilled water in a radiator, nor would I do so. This includes vehicles that were decades old, not 3-5 years old. Granted, most radiators and heater cores on older models (especially heater cores) had copper piping, but most newer cars are aluminum on the heater side and some on the radiator side. Even radiators that have copper pipes will normally use aluminum fins.

Just saying

dave

[JaggedEdges]

Well, we're not so lucky with the water here, you'll tell by the scale under the rad cap, then if it's not bumping off the fan on a cold day it soon will be and you'll have to back flush it with CLR.

I guess if you never go far, or short enough trips your tank lasts, it will hold up as good as they do in your cars.

[Motomon]

This was the setup on my old offroad teardrop. I stored it in a Pelican case with the shower nozzle and hoses. The pump was affixed under the trailer and the water came from carried jerry cans.

old_teardrop.jpg (116.39 KiB) Viewed 1594 times

[mkitchen]

I use the Zodi Extreme and the Pahaque TeePee shower/privy stand. The system is usually set up away from my off road trailer, an AT Horizon, and works very well.
Mikey