Date: Sun, 05 May 1996 22:47:08 -0700
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: jwakefield@4dmg.net (john wakefield)
Subject: LHS Shower in Westie?
Responding to my interest in finding a replacement for a sink's 12V
water pump, Mike Benthin mentioned something I've been working on for
some time. About a spare pump he carries, he said "I hoped one day to
use (it) for running a longer hose to an outside the van shower...but
that's another dream...."
My potential as a candidate to join any "Polar Bear Club" which
requires annual immersion into icy waters is nil. As a matter of fact,
"room temperature" water showers leave me cold. Yet a quick daily shower
can make a tremendous positive difference to the way I feel.
Let's examine some Westie options and contsraints for carrying an LHS
(that's Long Hot Shower) unit. (I know, you're thinking, this guy is
really nuts, but stay a while.) With the top up and curtains drawn,
neither height nor privacy is an issue. The Stock Westie water tank
carries 13 gallons of water, but I don't propose to run it dry with just
two or three showers. The two burner LP stove can warm a fully adequate
shower water heater. An inexpensive 12 volt water pump will serve my
design well. We need a shower stall with curtains and plumbing.
A one or two circuit aluminun "cold plate" pretty nearly completes my
non-obvious required materials list. Some of you already know from this
list what I'm about to propose.
My LHS has a rigid plastic shower base approximately 28" by 28" or 28"
by 30" and approximately 3 inches thick. An object this size may be
stored on edge behind the Westie rear seat opposite the closet while
touring. It's configured to accept four corner upright curtain supports,
each consisting of two connector interlocking sections of standard PVC
pipe. These in turn support the top curtain support ring, made of 4
3-way 90 degree PVC pipe tees and four more single sections of pipe. The
base has a raised confinment lip, to which velcro many be attached on
three sides to secure the curtain's bottom. The base collects the water
into a fine screen filtered sump from which the 12 volt pump draws water
and sends it to the "cold plate" which is secured above one of the two
burner stove's lighted burners which is within user reach for adjustment.
After passing through the heated cold plate, the water is routed to the
shower head's flow control and onto you. You like quarter hour long
showers? Enjoy yourself. That same three or four quarts will last
longer than you.
Now, I've mentioned using a "cold plate," a device with which most
people are unfamiliar. But believe me, they've been around longer than
the average American citizan, and used ones can be found for $20 or so.
A single circuit cold plate is made of a coil of metal tubing cast into a
rectangular aluminum block, with a screw-on tubing connection for each
end. Each circuit has two ends. A seven circuit cold plate has fourteen
tubing connectons, and weighs more than you want or need to tote along.
>From memory, a single circuit cold plate might typically be something
like 8.5" by 11" by about an inch thick except at the back where the two
connectors protrude. About like a ream of paper. They were designed to
sit under an ice pile in an ice bin of businesses which sell cold drinks.
You run filtered room temperature carbonated water through that baby,
and it comes out cold right now, and the ice gets melted as fast. It
won't care that we're heating water rather than cooling it. It transfers
heat very well.
The filter screen is important to avoid pluging the shower head. The
micro mesh computer CRT screen filters that were so popular a few years
back have plenty of transfer area and would stop anything that wouldn't
pass through the shower head.
Warm water alone does not make a shower. Here I'm soliciting some
help. I used to know a chemist with P&G who liked to talk about
cleansers. Surfactants, emulsifiers, phosphate content (oops, I'm
showing my age), and lots of detail information I haven't retained. But
one thing I do remember was the statement that most foaming introduced
into detergents was there for marketing reasons, because Americans
thought it had to be there. Ignor that low sudsing detergent in your
dishwasher. Pay attention to the Westie occupant behind that shower
curtain. Does anybody know of a good non-sudsing cleaner for this
recycling water shower. The typical stuff would probably foam lock the
pump in short order.
Then there's the final rinse. I've got several scheems, but it would
be fun to hear other's input to fine tune this baby. I'm thinking about
building a prototype, and I'd be interested to hear what people think
they'd be willing to pay for such a device. The 12 PVC pipe lengths
could be bundled and stored vertically in the Westie closet and the cold
plate with line leading to quick connects could be stored on the closet
floor. The view out the passenger side rear window would be obstucted by
the stored base, but seating would be unimpaired.
Ok, just in case you think the base with pump has to weigh a lot, get
hold of an old plastic skate board and unscrew the hardware. They're
very rigid and very light, a feat accomplised by interlocking top and
bottom sections designed with thin waffle shaped supports and made by
standard injection molding techniques. My prototype would be a humble
standard plastic shower base that I'd modified.
Give me some input.
John Wakefield
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