Day: October 16, 2018💾

When I own a land and a house, one of most important things in my book to have is a hot shower. 🚿 I like to be able to take a hot shower to get clean every day, to wash away the mud and the muck, the sweat and the smell of wood smoke and gasoline.🔥 Cold water is not effective to bathe, warm water is much more effective at cleaning.💧

Probably the single biggest thing I miss when camping is hot showers. I’ve tried the solar camp shower bags but they don’t hold that much water don’t get very warm and don’t really provide a suitable alternative for getting clean. The best I end up doing while camping in the summer is visiting lots of swimming pools and holes, showering in state parks. 🏊On autumn camping trips showers are less frequent than I prefer, usually limited to the rare nights I stay in developed campgrounds.🍂 But so is the cost of travel.

Fortunately, there are many low amperage, highly efficient ways to have hot showers even in remote off-grid places. Instant on propane showers quickly heat water by burning propane. High-efficiency water pumps for off-grid cabins can be quite efficient, getting water to desirable pressures. 🚰 And neither is very energy or water intensive compared to modern suburbanite homes. But it would get me clean.

And honestly if I had a hot shower I would also want to have it in the kitchen for ease of washing pots and pans. Paper plates are fine – they’re cheap and they burn – but to cook you still need to have pots and pans, which having hot water makes cleaning them much easier. 🍳Sure you can heat water on a camp stove for washing dishes but having a pressurized faucet with hot water makes everything easier. To say nothing about hand washing. 👏