Shower and Water Heater

I may be taking people on a UK - South Africa trip next year hopefully, and I was planning to fit a water heater to give them (and me!) a nice hot shower once in a while... Eberspaecher (or Webasto too I think) make excellent water heaters. In all the places I looked (eBay, the Eberspaecher website, and other small websites on travelling), the eberspaecher is fed into a calorifier to heat water for a shower... The question is: Why can't you feed the water straight to the shower head from the Eberspaecher water heater? Would it be too hot?

My idea was to do the following:
Water tank => 12V Water Pump => Eberspaecher Water Heater => Shower head

Any takes?

Jon

you need to maintain constant flow through heater using pump and heat exchanger in loop ,feed is then taken off to feed shower ,to give control on heat for shower head which can be combined with cold feed ,without interupting flow on heater which can be then thermostatical switched on off as calorifier reaches max temp,other wise you would have to switch shower and heater on at the same time otherwise water would boil or not be hot enough during use,

This sounds like a bit of an overkill in terms of money, space and weight to fit in a Defender... I was just browsing eBay and saw these Propane/LPG portable shower heating systems for £200 or so... I would just need a pump and all done...

Eccotemp L5 Portable Water Heater and Camp Shower on eBay (end time 31-Jul-11 16:00:22 BST)

My only worry is that the rattling of the car on a long trip will break this piece-of-cheap thing...

Hmmmm... Brain thinking

jamesmartin said:

you need to maintain constant flow through heater using pump and heat exchanger in loop ,feed is then taken off to feed shower ,to give control on heat for shower head which can be combined with cold feed ,without interupting flow on heater which can be then thermostatical switched on off as calorifier reaches max temp,other wise you would have to switch shower and heater on at the same time otherwise water would boil or not be hot enough during use,

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depends on what your long term plans are, those that have showers that i work on also use as in car heaters and preheaters for engine ,and are secured under car in one case and under seat s in another ,one we fitted from old caravan (heat exchanger)

"Long-term" plan is also to get an AIR heater for the CAB for the winter... And as far as I know, the WATER heater can be coupled with accessories to blow warm air in the cab... So as far as I can tell I can use 1 water heater for BOTH heating AIR in the cab and WATER for a shower for example... My only problem is getting to grips to spending 300 pounds for a calorifier (and the extra space and weight, which are considerable)

Jon

you could get used one out of caravan ,you only need small heat exchange tank with thermostatic switch,or fit heat exchanger in cab heater line and use engine to heat shower obviously no good first thing in morning but alright for as many showers as you like once engine warm ,and can be fitted in engine bay with simple pump and solenoid valves

you could use a carver gas water heater as fitted to caravans

We have this one, custom made, you just need worm engine, we do not have LR. Shower and pump from caravan shop.






and water tank


delica | Interier – rajce.net

Very nice setup "girl".
I am writing up another post now to comment on my "findings" so far.

[EDIT]: Here it is
Expedition Shower? What to do? « Jonathan Arbib

I am still not ceratin though as to what to do... The heat exchanger seems the best setup to have something durable, effective, much cheaper and out of the way to save space in the back.


J

all fuel burning heaters will require calorifier or sepeperate res with heat exchanger ,i would fit heat exchanger of engine system ie t" into car heater pipes and use engine fuel burner preheater and cab heater to preheat engine and heat shower system simpler and dosent require extra gas bottles, fuel tanks ,calorifier system with extra wieght and space

I would go with james martin idea , save weight which as you probably know can soon run away esp with more than two people in a 110 .

Thanks for ALL your comments guys! All very highly appreciated

tacr2man said:

I would go with james martin idea , save weight which as you probably know can soon run away esp with more than two people in a 110 .

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i live in africa, what we do is to carry a camping shower bucket and a hard steelbucket, some rope and a pully (if you want to be fancy.) simply put your shower tent ( canvas screen ) up under a tree and warm water on your camp fire, put in bucket and hoist up in tree, hey presto, alfresco shower with a view of the stars... that way you dont have to carry gas big water tanks etc etc etc , works great, we have over 800 guiests on safari with us anualy and they love it. we do go on safari in the real bush though, so wouldnt try rhis in any public camp grounds, with that said even the public camp grounds here in Botswana have showers already

From what you said, here is a photo from one of my trips in Botswana

Rean said:

i live in africa, what we do is to carry a camping shower bucket and a hard steelbucket, some rope and a pully (if you want to be fancy.) simply put your shower tent ( canvas screen ) up under a tree and warm water on your camp fire, put in bucket and hoist up in tree, hey presto, alfresco shower with a view of the stars... that way you dont have to carry gas big water tanks etc etc etc , works great, we have over 800 guiests on safari with us anualy and they love it. we do go on safari in the real bush though, so wouldnt try rhis in any public camp grounds, with that said even the public camp grounds here in Botswana have showers already

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Hi, I sell these showers (the L5 detailed above) at £160 - they really are good! I use myself on all trips and am now installing them into overland trailers as well. Best of all you get hot water first thing in the morning as you're not using a heat exchager and needing to run the engine (downside? you need to take gas but then you probably are for cooking anyway)

You do need a good pumps for them (naturally I do these too lol) but then the pump can be used for water transfer etc. With the pump you can draw directly from a natural water source (river, stream, lake etc) so you're not using your drinking supply.

Inline heat exchanger fits into your heater pipes on your truck , but only seen them for sale in Aust South Africa USA , and the import duty makes them expensive, they are around £65 .