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Back to Top Building a shower is where do-it-yourself skills are particularly useful. A superb shower can be built for less than $100. Good scrounging skills can reduce that figure even more. The biggest problem is finding all of the parts. Fortunately, all parts are off-the-shelf components available at most well stocked hardware store or larger home discount stores like Home Depot and Wal-Mart. The shower described here evolved specifically for a teardrop. It consists of a bucket to hold the water, a copper coil to sit on the teardrop stove, a 12 volt fishing boat bait well pump, hoses, quick couplers and a shower head. The water is heated on the stove while running through the copper coil laying on the stove. The pump continuously circulates the water until the proper temperature is reached. Surprisingly, five gallons of water is sufficient for two adult showers and the dinner dishes. Ten to fifteen minutes are required to heat water to 105 F. degrees. | |
 Fig 1. Assembled Shower Unit. The copper coil seen (contained in the sheet metal cover) is the remains of a Zodi #6190, which is no longer available. |
 Fig 2. Reconfigured for a shower without the copper coil. Quick Couplers show male configuration on one side and female configuration on other side - visible on the hoses to the copper coil. |
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When heating water, the unit is assembled as shown in Fig. 1. After the water is as hot as you like, the power is cut off, and the quick couplers used to remove the copper coil from the setup. The quick couplers are then reconnected so water is pumped directly from the bucket to a shower head as shown in Fig. 2. This allows your shower bucket and shower enclosure to be some distance from the rear of the teardrop (or your vehicle) and avoids a muddy kitchen area.
We replaced the small propane tank on our teardrop with a five gallon (20lb.) tank. We can cook all our meals and take two showers a day for a full month before we need a propane refill. For traveling, we put the copper coil, the hose, the power cord, wash cloth and our shampoo and bar soap in the empty bucket. Be sure to totally empty the bucket of any water before traveling. The bucket always seems to find a way to tip and spill unless well secured. A common five gallon polyethylene bucket with a handle can be used for the basic shower unit. A 12 volt bait well or live well pump for a fishing boat, an Atwood A750, provides the power to circulate the water. The bucket has a one inch hole drilled 2 1/4 inches (on center) above the inside of the bottom of the bucket. The pump is mounted outside the bucket and the intake inside the bucket with the 90 degree elbow positioned just above the floor of the bucket. All necessary hardware and fittings for mounting the pump, including the 90 degree elbow mounted inside, come with the pump. Use any good aquarium sealant to seal the connection through the bucket. Smaller Atwood pumps pumping 500gph are only slightly less expensive and do not provide quite enough power to move the water to a height of six feet and still provide an adequate shower. Although several different models of pumps are easily mounted on the inside floor of the bucket, most fishing boat pumps are not designed to withstand the heat of the shower water and soon fail. Although all live well pumps are designed to be resistant to debris, the 500gph models seem somewhat prone to plugging. Debris is easily removed from any live well pump. Unfortunately, if the pump plugs, it is usually when you are showering - at a most inconvenient time. The Atwood 750 gph pump is mounted outside the bucket where it is not subject to excessive heat, seldom plugs with debris and has plenty of power. If debris does plug the exterior mount pump (which we have never seen), a single screw allows you to remove the pump and easily clean it. As we shall see later, debris plugging the pump is not the problem. The shower head is what usually plugs. The fitting on the exhaust port of the pump is a standard 3/4 to 1/2 inch plumbers reducing fitting. A 1/2 inch MPT to 3/8 inch hose barb is screwed into the reducer fitting. Electrical power is supplied to the pump from the teardrop deep cycle battery or your vehicle cigarette lighter socket. Attach a coiled power supply cord to the tails of the pump. The coiled power wire is available at Wal-Mart, comes with an 8 amp fuse, cigarette lighter plug-in and extends to ten feet. Whatever power wire is used, be sure it is rated for the 4 amps required by the pump. Also, be careful to keep the proper polarity of the battery, the plug, the wire and the pump properly connected positive to positive and negative to negative. The pump could be damaged if the polarity is reversed. Where electrical wires are connected, crimpable connectors work well but should be covered with shrink tubing for insulation and resistance to water. The black vinyl tubing is available at bigger home improvement stores everywhere. Do not use the clear vinyl tubing sold in every hardware store in the US. It is much too stiff, especially when cold, kinks far too readily, and lets in the light which will allow algae to grow inside the hose - a little gross but not harmful. You will need two pieces of vinyl hose about 24 inches long and two more 36 inches long. These lengths are needed to reach from the stove to the bucket on the ground and for showering. The two short pieces are forced onto the ends of the copper coil and the longer pieces onto the hose barb on the pump and to the shower head The remaining ends are all forced onto the hose barbs of the disconnects. WD-40 sprayed on the hose barbs makes insertion easy. Standard 3/8 inch screw hose clamps can be used to secure the hoses onto the hose barbs. It is easier and less bulky to use stainless steel wire and simply wind the wire around the hose twice and twist the ends together. Then bend the twisted part parallel to the hose and toward the compression fitting. The copper coil is 3/8 inch soft copper pipe sold in standard 20 foot coils. To form the coil, simply wrap the copper pipe around something like a pipe about 3 to 3 1/2 inches in diameter. A handheld copper pipe bender available at hardware stores can also be used to form the coils. You will need about twenty wraps around the pipe with both tails exiting the coil on the same side. A metal cover on the copper coil protects it and helps hold the heat of the stove on the coil. It is however not truly necessary. After the coils are formed, they can be left as a simple coil or flattened laterally to get closer to the stove burner. Either configuration works well. | |
 Fig. 3 Quick Couplers. Top row shows fully assembled couplers ready for showering. The middle row shows the couplers "disconnected". Remember the side with the "O" ring is finger tight only. The bottom row shows parts totally unassembled with two of the fittings sawn off and ready to be soldered together as they are in the row above. |
I think there are brass fittings to do what you want without soldering. I know you aren’t applying any real pressure, but a but joint like you show is not very strong. Also, it would be difficult to cut and solder straight for the average DIYer
To do it without solder, You would need a male flare with a female pipe thread, and a male pipe thread with a barb. Both are available (we use them on our trailers) Then you could use the female flare/female flare fitting to join them. I will look around and see if I can find the fittings I am thinking of. |
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The quick couplers are made of brass and have to fashioned from specialty fittings for soft copper pipe. They are a combination of hose barb fittings and copper pipe compression fittings and "O" rings. This do-it-yourself coupler is the hardest thing to accomplish on the entire shower unit since it requires soldering. It is necessary to saw off parts of two fittings and solder the hose barb fittings to each end of the compression fitting. You can easily see how the quick couplers are assembled and where the joints are soldered in Fig. 3. The Flare Swivel Compression fitting is the heart of the coupler on each side of the copper coil. It will be necessary to make two such complete quick couplers.
On one side of the copper coil, arrange the couplers so that it is a male fitting and the other side a female fitting. This allows the copper coil to be removed and the shower head and bucket connected directly for your shower. One side of each compression fitting should be wrench tightened and the other side only finger tight. The "O" ring goes inside the hand tightened side of each compression fitting after you solder the parts together. The "O" ring should be slightly larger than the opening in the Flare Swivel Compression fitting so it fits snugly. Several manufacturers make Quick Release fittings or pneumatic Quick Couplers. Unfortunately most are designed for high pressure air or water, and the Quick Release fittings for low pressure and low volume water are too large and generally quite expensive for present purposes. There are several alternatives for a shower head. The easy alternatives are the sprinkler heads, shower heads and sprayer heads used for ironing or spraying any number of liquids. The problem is finding one the proper size and finding one that is easy to disassemble and clean when it plugs. Of all the alternatives we tried (sink sprayers, hand held shower heads, pesticide sprayers, even pressure washer heads), the shower head is the one part of the system that consistently plugs with debris. This is especially true when you are using native water from a pond, lake, or stream for your shower. No matter how careful you are, there will be debris in the water and it will be sucked into the pump and deposited in the shower head. The shower head must be easily and quickly disassembled and reassembled since you usually find the shower head plugged in the midst of actually showering. A screen over the pump intake only required the hassle of constant cleaning. What about putting a piece of fine mesh cloth over the top of the bucket as a filter when you fill it to avoid clogging?
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 Fig 4. Shower Head - Assembled and unassembled. Insert the "O" ring into the compression cap. |
 Fig 5. If a spray pattern is desired, each ring of holes after the center hole is drilled at an increasing angle on a drill press. First we put a dime under the edge of the cap for the first ring, then a quarter for the second and then a nickel for the third |
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The shower head that functions best is one you assemble easily. It is made from a male hose barb fitting and a female compression cap. An "O" ring, slightly larger than the opening, is inserted into the compression cap to seal the connection finger tight - Fig 4 and 5. The compression cap will have to have several small holes (1/16th or 1/8th inch) drilled into the flat end to provide the necessary spray for your shower. The distance between the holes must be as great as possible for the individual water streams to separate. The compression cap and hose barb together have the necessary weight to prevent the shower head from backing out of the bucket from the force of the sprayed water. Since the shower head usually plugs while you are using the shower, it is an easy matter to unscrew the compression cap, turn it over, back flush any debris out of the cap with the water stream, reattach the compression cap, (finger tight only) and finish your shower.
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There you have it. Warm, refreshing, private showers designed to operate with your teardrop and available almost anytime you need. It can be done with a commercial unit or a D-I-Y unit. Some of the commercial camp shower units are very teardrop friendly. These are the Extreme Stove Top Hot Water Shower Model ES ($119) and the Extreme Series #8150 (which are essentially identical) and the RainMan Hot Camp Shower ($291plus shipping from Australia). Just make sure there is sufficient clearance on your teardrop stove for the RainMan. Any of the shower enclosures work well but in general, the simpler the better. The two enclosures that stand out from all the rest is the Outback Porta Privy ($50) and the Zodi Privacy Shelter ($100) and Shower Pole ($30). Most of them can do double duty as a toilet enclosure and dressing room. An accomplished do-it-yourselfer can build a superb shower for less than $100.
The great thing about teardrops is they are so cool and parsimonious - that is, they do so much with so little and you get to do it with comfort, style and efficiency. As Reader's Digest magazine says about the CampInn teardrop in the "Best Home Away From Home" in America's 100 Best for 2006…. "...'roughing it' has never been so smooth." Roughing it is now even smoother for the teardrop owner because they now have a hot shower, privacy and a toilet any time they please or need.
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Bucket - available as a recycled five gallon bucket or from home improvement stores. | |
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does not constitute endorsement by the owners of Camp-Inn TM Trailers or Petenwell Industries LLC or by Norman or Margaret Baker. © 2007-2008 Entire manuscript is copyrighted by Norman and Margaret Baker and Camp-Inn TM Trailers and Petenwell Industries LLC. Publication or reproduction without credit is strictly forbidden. |