low tech outdoor solar shower
Time for an outdoor shower. Low tech. The plan is to run a hose from the cabin, split into 2 lines. The first line goes directly to the cold side of a pressure balanced diverter. The second line enters a 100ft coil of 1 inch black NSF plastic pipe. This coil is our crude solar collector. If 100 ft doesn’t do it, we will use an additional coil.The heated water then sits in a small hot water heater (not powered up) for storage. This all sounds great, except for an imbalance of pressure between the hot and cold side, due to the friction of the hot running through the coils. The plan was to use a pre-pressurized well tank to push the hot water through, and let the normal cabin pressure push the cold. The soon-to-be-hot split would hook up directly to the pressure tank. All of this takes place within 50 ft. of the cabin, from which there is adequate water pressure.
I’m trying to do this without an electric pump, but I can put a booster in if the pressure tank won’t do it.
Your comments please.
Replies
In the mid-1980's, I was a church youth group leader, and I took the kids to to Appalachia Service Project as a summer trip/mission project. We spent our nights at a community center, and our days working on houses of locals.
The community center had water, but no water heater. Instead, they had a couple of black-painted drums mounted on top of a 10-foot high platform. A garden hose ran to the bottom of the first drum. Near the top of that drum, there was a fitting that took water from the top of that drum to the bottom of the second drum.
At the top of the second drum, a hose fitting took water from there to a pistol grip nozzle in your hand.
When you build it, fill it. Leave it in the sun till your day's work is done. Turn on the hosebib that feeds the first barrel -- this adds pressure and flow to the system.
Now point the pistol grip at your head. Presto -- hot shower. When you're done, turn off the hosebib.
Now, don't let the inspector see this -- there is a small chance of backflushing water from the drums into the water source (well or city system).
We had one of those black 30 gallon, drum water heaters at our hunting camp for 20 years. And for 20 years one guy got a hot shower.
baseboard,
I have built a few just using the guts of a water heater or two, Paint them black and build an insulated box with a scrounged sliding glass door for a cover. Leave the pop off valve in because these get hot! Plumb both hot and cold to the shower just like normal. No pumps needed.
KK
AHA, a cost effective solar power system, thanks for posting.
No need for a pump if you pay close attention to pipe slopes and reverse siphons.
Won't work as described.
The water heater will be full of cold water until you open the shower valve.
At that time whatever hot water is in the coiled black pipe will flow into the reservoir of cold water.
By the time you get any sort of warm water going your pipe will be empty.
Eliminate the water heater, or strip off the outer cover and paint it black so that it too will get hot.
Gary at builditsolar.com figures 300' of 1" black poly gives him 13 gallons of hot water which is sufficient for his average shower.
Joe H
Elevate the tank above your head.
Line out from bottom of tank to heating coils.
Heating coils in plywood box (painted black) with glass
front. Coils laid out in box to fit as long as possible
continuos run.
Position box within 15 degrees of South and lift one as
close to vertical as seems reasonable.
Check valve then line in to top of water tank.
Second line out to shower head.
This actually works.Takes all day but you will have a nice shower
in the evening on a fairly sunny day.
Hi,
"This all sounds great, except for an imbalance of pressure between the hot and cold side, due to the friction of the hot running through the coils. "
The pressure drop through 100 ft of 1 inch poly pipe at 3 gpm is only 0.26 psi, so you are not talking about much pressure drop.
As was mentioned, I would lose the small hot water tank and just use the coils of pipe for storage. 100 ft of 1.25 inch poly stores about 6 gallons -- if you use the hot water side at 1.2 gpm, that gives you a 5 minute shower -- or just use more pipe if you want a longer shower.
A simple batch solar water heater might be just as easy -- lots of plans them here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm
At the same link, there are a bunch of hose coil or small tank showers -- most are gravity feed, but might have some ideas you can use.
Gary
GaryGary (Didn't the Monkees sing a song about you...?)Thanks for your comments,especially the build it solar link!Baseboard been VERRRY good to me