[Issus]

So i'm looking at options for adding a shower to my troll. My girlfriend and I are camping at least 2 nights, up to 7 nights out a month.

It doesn't really matter for 2 nights, but much longer and you start to get a bit on the nose - especially in summer. Also nice to be able to wash the salt water off if you go swimming.

From my research, it looks like there are two options, engine heat or LPG. I have a dual fuel stove and a dual fuel lantern i run off Shellite - full tanks on both before we go lasts the week out easily, and my drawers have room for an extra 2 litres "just in case". Therefore, I'm more partial to the engine heat option as I'd prefer not to have to make room for a gas tank somewhere. The engine mounted ones are also nice as they dont take up any space inside the car/roof rack.

I did a fair bit of searching on the forums but could only come up with options from 3 years ago.

As far as hot water heaters I see:
Helton (Helton heat exchangers - camp hot water systems and camping showers)
Hot water unit for $339
or it's colder sibling the Hot shower system for $279.
Their shower roses are the $30 ones from ebay which look a little bit "poor". Plus, i'm 1.85m tall, and thats further than they say they'll lift water.

Twine (Products)
With flojet that only has 1m lift,
or with Shurflow with a 4m lift ability.

And finally Piranha Power Shower Kit (Piranha Power Shower)
which has a SHURflow pump that's higher pressure, 1.8m lift and higher flow than the one Twine is using. I believe this was about $550 at the 4wd show recently.



For gas power,
Coleman's is about $450-500 with shower kit Products - Gas stoves, lanterns, showers, accessories Page 48 - no flow rate or lift ability listed.
Aquacube @ $269.99 (very low flow rate, rather large) also at kangaroo tent city link above. No lift ability lifted.
Primus also seem to have a unit very similar to Coleman.


Does anyone know of any other options?

I'm leaning towards the Piranha kit as they are a brand name/available at a 4wd shop/readily supported and i talked to one of the guys from Piranha at the 4wd show. I prefer Helton's mounting options though with all the connectors at one end.

The final option is to get a water heater coil from Twine or Helton and get my own hoses/mounting brackets/decent pump and do my own thing.

 

[rotor138]

Check out Glind as well. Mine lifted water the length of the garden hose (approx 15m) up a couple of meters and had heaps of pressure.

 

[Issus]

Thanks mate, Glind certainly have a good looking website full of useful information. As a software engineer, i feel if a company cant be arsed with their website, they probably cant be arsed with their product (since it's the face of the business to most of their more tech savvy customers).

Glind 4WD RV Boat Camp Shower and DIY Storage Hot Water Systems | Flojet pressure pumps | Marine Heat Exchangers - Glind Original Looks pretty good - i like that they give good specs on the pump not just "yeah so it includes this beaut pump..." Nice that they tell you what the flow rate of the pump is open and what the maximum you'll actually get from it through their shower rose is. Just seems a bit more honest than the others.

The exchanger itself actually looks a whole lot like the piranha unit...

 

[Bundyrumandcoke]

We have the Colemans instant hot water system, very happy with it, one of our best camping investments. Your not limited to close by a vehicle use with one of them.

 

[Issus]

Hmm that's a good point Bundy. What sort of water flow do you get?

 

[Troys 5.7 GU]

Check out Glind as well. Mine lifted water the length of the garden hose (approx 15m) up a couple of meters and had heaps of pressure.

X2 I have one. Love it

 

[Sméagol]

The piranah unit is a rebadged glind, wich I have, great unit but the car needs to be hot to get warm water. If you camp in 1 spot a lot you may be better off with 1 of the cube type steups.

 

[jwmr]

Just a few points
Have a look at Coleman before deciding - they are a big bit of kit to carry but serve a few jobs
The pump lift is vertical lift, that is top of water to the pump inlet, you will also loose some performance sucking through too long or too small diameter pipe.
If sucking from dirty water use a screen of some sort to keep dirt etc out of pump
Fitting exchanger into engine bay isnt always stright forward, but its one off
Engine doesnt need to be running but its hotter if it is, just arrange to have shower when you return from going somewhere in the vehicle
Look into quality of shower head and hoses, these an give problems if crappy quality

I have a twine setup, but would go helton next time, also I would mount pump and hoses in small plastic toolbox, garden connectors on bullbar for hoses to exchanger. This means pump is on ground (more lift availiable) and its not in the engine bay all the time - heat and dust.

 

[Tongie]

I use the Coleman , Found it on Ebay for $279 on special. I keep telling everyone it's for my missus but i love it too. Instant hot Coffee , 5 stars.

 

[Droolyn]

As Bundyrum... said, the Coleman unit is the best bit of camping kit!! We fully agree, wife & I like to shower in the morning. The rooftop tent setup resricts moving the vehicle, not sure how long, but may take a while to warm an onboard unit @ idle especially with diesel & noise to consider.
We use a pop up shower tent, I'm around the same height, no problem with lift, usually fill a 20lt bucket (don't use the floppy water bottles supplied, too much hassels) enough for both of us to clean all the important bits!
Is a big unit, but everything fits well into the carry bag. Mobility makes it versatile, not stuck a metre from the Patrol.
And it gets hot enough (boiling!!) to make a good cup of tea!!

 

[MikeH]

I have the primus, it comes in a blue tool box looking thing and has a hose to connect to an external gas bottle. I put an adapter on it to run it off a 9kg. it has a cig lighter cord on it.
The hoses kink a bit. they are soft thin vinyl, which you need so they bend enough to fit in the storage section.
the pump died, water got into the motor. but I replaced it with a very small bilge pump works a treat now.
I'm 1.9m tall.
It has a valve on the shower head and an auto switch thing.. it never worked right.
so what we do with it now is recirculate the water in a bucket until its the right temperature, then turn the heater off and just use the pump and the valve to shower. 2 adults and a kid can have a pretty decent wash with 12 litres.
I'm considering cutting the storage box off the side of it, then putting garden hose fittings on it. the whole lot will then coil up inside a big cheap soup pot which doubles as a water reservior. The bloody hoses keep kinking, especially when they are hot.

a mate of mine has one that is also for hot water for drinks Its the coleman hot water on demand
, it's a smaller unit aboiyut the size of a coffee percolator with a big dial on the front. it has a spout on it or you can connect the shower hose, it doesnt have a lot of lift but you put the main unit and the water on the tray of the ute it goes allright. it uses disposable cans of gas and has an adapter for a bottle. The disposable cans will be expensive to run but you might fine that appealing because you can carry them in the car. it also has its own 6v battery inside. so it can be completely self contained (carry it to a secluded water hole perhaps?)

my vote? get a big soup pot with a lid, a $25 bilge pump, a ball valve, and a shower head you like.
you control the flow with the ball valve on the shower head.

I prefer soup pots to buckets because they are more stable, more durable have a lid and pack well into the car.

Bilge pump will be fine as long as the water is showering temperature, dont boil them. The bilge of a boat is often 40 odd degrees or more with the motor running.

 

[Adoom]

I have the primus, it comes in a blue tool box looking thing and has a hose to connect to an external gas bottle. I put an adapter on it to run it off a 9kg. it has a cig lighter cord on it.
The hoses kink a bit. they are soft thin vinyl, which you need so they bend enough to fit in the storage section.
the pump died, water got into the motor. but I replaced it with a very small bilge pump works a treat now.
I'm 1.9m tall.
It has a valve on the shower head and an auto switch thing.. it never worked right.
so what we do with it now is recirculate the water in a bucket until its the right temperature, then turn the heater off and just use the pump and the valve to shower. 2 adults and a kid can have a pretty decent wash with 12 litres.
I'm considering cutting the storage box off the side of it, then putting garden hose fittings on it. the whole lot will then coil up inside a big cheap soup pot which doubles as a water reservior. The bloody hoses keep kinking, especially when they are hot.

a mate of mine has one that is also for hot water for drinks Its the coleman hot water on demand
, it's a smaller unit aboiyut the size of a coffee percolator with a big dial on the front. it has a spout on it or you can connect the shower hose, it doesnt have a lot of lift but you put the main unit and the water on the tray of the ute it goes allright. it uses disposable cans of gas and has an adapter for a bottle. The disposable cans will be expensive to run but you might fine that appealing because you can carry them in the car. it also has its own 6v battery inside. so it can be completely self contained (carry it to a secluded water hole perhaps?)

my vote? get a big soup pot with a lid, a $25 bilge pump, a ball valve, and a shower head you like.
you control the flow with the ball valve on the shower head.

I prefer soup pots to buckets because they are more stable, more durable have a lid and pack well into the car.

Bilge pump will be fine as long as the water is showering temperature, dont boil them. The bilge of a boat is often 40 odd degrees or more with the motor running.

didnt primus bring out a new model/update of theres? do you know if yours is the new or old one?

 

[Issus]

Just a few points
I have a twine setup, but would go helton next time, also I would mount pump and hoses in small plastic toolbox, garden connectors on bullbar for hoses to exchanger. This means pump is on ground (more lift availiable) and its not in the engine bay all the time - heat and dust.

I was thinking about putting garden hose connectors into the front air intakes of the bull bar (standard nissan alloy one). That would allow easy connections. I like the idea of a pump in the car for filling up jerrycans and such. I have my compressor built into my drawers for a similar reason, easier to use - saves space.

I'm not so fussed about having to have a hot engine, i personally prefer to shower before going to bed/in the evening, keeps all the dust and dirt out of the bedding. We tend to head out and do stuff/look at stuff (i'm an avid photographer) so we'll always have a hot engine in the evening.

Guess i'll have to go into Rays or Ranger and have a look at the Coleman unit. We haven't been to anywhere with water you could shower with near by yet (January trip we'll have salt water...).

I don't drink anything but water, the missus does like a coffee in the morning though. I like a cooked breakfast in the morning though (even if it's just toast) so the stove gets lit anyway and we cook up some washing up water at the same time. I guess the Coleman would be more convenient for that.

Can you use the Coleman with salt water?

 

[truckster]

search the site for SHOWER

plenty of threads on it.

 

[Issus]

did that truckster, as i mentioned. Using the vbulleting search, only 1 post in the first 2 pages is relevant to hot water systems. Using google's custom search, i get 1 relevant post and then it starts looking for "power".

There are heaps of threads that come up in the search, but not many relevant to what i'm asking, hence the post

 

[Tongie]

Ive just made up two PVC pipes tanks on my roofrack with a garden hose connector fitting drain. I just carry a short length of hose and plumb this directly into the coleman.. Works a treat ,primes the coleman with gravity pressure,40lts drinking water on tap !

 

[Impossible1]

I've just sold a Twine heat exchanger, as it didn't seem to be getting as hot as I would have like. I've tried a Coleman HWOD unit, but as has been said, they are a big heavy bit of kit to cart around.

Not sure what my next option is. I've got another heat exchange to try out, but don't think it'll be much different to the Twine.

Bucket of water with a couple of billies of boiled water in, and a pump might be the go.

 

[walkal]

The wife and I use the coleman hot water on demand, and we think it is fantastic.
I got it of this mob Products - Gas stoves, lanterns, showers, accessories Page 48
Very easy to deal with and it took only 5 days from ordering to arrive to my door.
They can be bulky but thats the trade off to beening portable.

Cheers

Wayne

 

[adricat]

I have a glind under the bonnet with a flojet under the front seat, works great, plently of flow and hot enought.

 

[MikeH]

didnt primus bring out a new model/update of theres? do you know if yours is the new or old one?

I've had the primus for about 4 years.

I wouldn't put salt water though ANY of them except the soup pot/bilge pump rig I was talking about.
If you do this remember to use the right sort of soap.