Outside Shower Enclosure

Z

zonker

Advanced Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2008
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54
Location
Willamette Valley, OR
I will just bet that someone on this forum has a great suggestion for our FWC outside shower in regards to a little privacy. Now if I was like Kcowyo's friends with the Jeep.. I would just get "Nekkid" and stand on the hood of our truck (would not want my feet to get muddy), let her rip and not have a care in the world. Well.. I can say for sure my wife will not have any part of that kind of action and I guess quite honestly I would prefer something a little more cozy.

So offer up your favorite suggestions and help me find "Just exactly what I was looking for"!
 
On my last camper I rigged something up where I made a U shaped PVC pipe assembly that easily dissasembled. I slid that into the yakima cross bars on my rack. On that I hung a shower curtain. I had a few bugs to work out of that system about the time I had to sell that camper due to life issues at the time.

I hope to revist that and do something similar. It's a good question though - I think the lack of a factory option in this department is crappy.

What I would really like to see is the option to have two metal brackets mounted high on the side of the camper and a third on the edge of the roof. The two brackets hold some kind of loop or pipe assembly like the one mentioned above. The third roof bracket is where you attach a cable from the raised roof to the outermost part of the pipe/loop assembly to hold it up. Hang curtain from that.
 
outback

I don't have an outside shower on the Eagle model, so I went with the suggestions made on this thread:

http://www.wanderthewest.com/forum/showthread.php?t=635&highlight=outback+shower

The Outback shelter pops up and folds down really quickly. It was a great solution for me. If you set one of these up next to the camper, would the outside shower hose have enough reach to allow you to take a comfortable shower?
 
I have a real love/hate relationship with the Outback Porta Privy. I love to use it, and I hate to put it away. Other than that, I also like the low initial cost, the interior size, and ease of set-up. It has a few really nice features like an accessible exterior towel holder, a removable floor (velcros at the corners) the skylight, glow in the dark zippers and it is ground-stake free.

The mobility of the tent is nice as you can easily move it into the sun while showering. It doubles for us as a private room for the potty, where that mobility comes in handy once again. But seriously, packing it up can be a real SOB until you get the hang of it.

But more importantly than my nitpicking... she loves it. And when she loves it, life is good. ;)


Cleanliness is next to Happiness -
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Happiness -
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Stowing it does take some practice and a "feel" for the way the frame wants to bend, but once you get the hang of it, I've found stowing it is pretty quick.

If the wind picks up, you can stake it down. Mine came with ground stakes and guy lines. If it's a calm day, as kcowyo says, it can be left freestanding and no muss, no fuss.
 
Yeah... what they said. I've been using the outback for a year or so now. MUCH better than the previous one I had from one of the mass merchant big box outdoor stores. The free standing design is awesome and the cost is cheap enough that I won't mind replacing it in several years if the metal fatigues and breaks.

As KC said.. when she's happy...

On a side note, we have been using the Zodi extreme shower with ours as our Hawk wasn't equipped with the outdoor shower.

Kyle
 
Battery powered shower head

I use a submersible pump powered by 4 D cell batteries in a separate foot switch. It came with a 6 foot hose and hand held shower head. Can't remember, but I might have gotten it at Cabela's. Didn't cost much and it does double duty as my sink faucet for the Camp Kitchen. A 12 volt bilge pump might work and avoid the batteries, although mine doesn't use up batteries too fast. I heat up a few gallons of water and drop in the pump. Works great. Some pvc pipe and a shower curtain should work for the privacy minded. If there is any interest I'll root through my car camping gear and get the specifics on my battery powered pump.
Enjoy
 
I've always thought DLN's internal shower was interesting. You need to work around each other showering inside but outside of that there would be minimal stuff the break down and less mud on stuff I'd think. Plus if you're running off your internal burners then there isn't a need for a bigger external propane rig. However it better be dry enough out to vent the condensation.
 
We had the outback porta privy but it didn't hold up in windy conditions. Also never got the hang of folding it back up despite watching the video a bunch of times. We switched to the walmart utility enclosure and found it holds up much better in the wind:cool:
 
I'm a little torn on this whole shower thing. Generally, we make it into a town every couple of days where we can grab a shower at a campground (most let you pay $5 and use the facilities), but a shower more often would be nice.

I have one of those solar showers and used it once so far, au naturale. The biggest grip with it was getting the bladder up high enough for gravity to make the water flow. Hanging it from one of the roof clamps wasn't high enough. Will probably just throw it on the roof next time.

The other problem is all the extra water. If you have water available, no problem, but I usually have to carry it into the desert. The shelter would be really nice, but it's just one more thing to pack and find a place for. I dunno.
 
We had the outback porta privy but it didn't hold up in windy conditions. Also never got the hang of folding it back up despite watching the video a bunch of times. We switched to the walmart utility enclosure and found it holds up much better in the wind:cool:

Hey Mojave Mark. Did you have problems with wind even when the guy lines were set up? How did it fail? I haven't had problems with wind (yet?).
 
I'm a little torn on this whole shower thing. Generally, we make it into a town every couple of days where we can grab a shower at a campground (most let you pay $5 and use the facilities), but a shower more often would be nice.

I have one of those solar showers and used it once so far, au naturale. The biggest grip with it was getting the bladder up high enough for gravity to make the water flow. Hanging it from one of the roof clamps wasn't high enough. Will probably just throw it on the roof next time.

The other problem is all the extra water. If you have water available, no problem, but I usually have to carry it into the desert. The shelter would be really nice, but it's just one more thing to pack and find a place for. I dunno.

I'm of similar mindset to you. Getting a shower setup for the rig is pretty low on my priority list, got baby wipes for some cleaning in the meantime. :p However I'm all for brainstorming ideas up. :D
 
I'm of similar mindset to you. Getting a shower setup for the rig is pretty low on my priority list, got baby wipes for some cleaning in the meantime. :p However I'm all for brainstorming ideas up. :D

We pretty much roll commando style with a sunshower too. Typically no one around to be concerned. The Porta Privy does seem to be the economical/space saving way to go though.
 
Coleman shower

This is the simple setup I use. Haven't used it with the Hawk yet, but it could work something like this. Everything but the water does double duty.
 

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Enclosure???

The only reason to have one is to spare the rest of the world this horrible sight.
 

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We used the outback model on several trips. Even with the extra tie downs, the wind won. On one of the trips, a friend had the "utility room" from walmart. That held up well in the wind. We have since purchased one and found it has held up well for the price. Another friend has the Cabelas model which she really likes. That one looks a bit heavier duty than the walmart one but is probably more $$$ too.
 
Outback

I use the Outback model. When I set it up, I only stake the 4 corners from the inside, then set a 5 gallon water can inside for added weight against the wind.

During extremely high winds, the entire unit will flatten out during a gust, then just pops up again. It has survived storms with winds gusting to 50 mph.
 
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