Car Camp Solutions Solar Shower Designs
How solar showers work
The idea behind a solar shower is simple - use the sun's free energy to heat up water that you will later use to clean yourself. Black is the best color to absorb heat, and a non-reflective surface absorbs more than a reflective surface. So, to maximize the heat transfer from the sun to the water, a matte black surface, with the largest surface area to volume ratio works best.
There are three main ways to get water out to wash you:
There are three main ways to get water out to wash you:
- Raise the water up high and use gravity to force the water out with some pressure. This is how water towers and solar shower bags work. However, solar shower bags are heavy and you can't raise them high enough to get much pressure.
- You can use an electric pump to pull the water out of a reservoir and provide pressure. This is how RVs and other vessels provide water with some pressure.
- You can add air to a sealed reservoir of water, increasing the pressure inside. Then when you open the reservoir, the air expands, forcing the water out with some pressure. This is how car-mounted solar showers operate - they include an air valve similar to a bike tire, so you can increase the pressure using a manual or electric tire pump (I would suggest a car-powered or battery-powered electric pump).
Alternatives to Building your own Solar shower
There are plenty of alternatives to building your own car-mounted solar shower from parts you find at Home Depot and Amazon. There are a few car-mounted models produced by companies like Yakima and WaterPORT. However, these can be quite expensive, in the $300 - $500 price range. Other options include a water bag that you hang above your head or an electric pump that you put in a bucket of water. Read below for some of the options I have found in my research.
CAR-MOUNTED SOLAR SHOWERS YOU CAN PURCHASE
If you have the money, and want a solution quickly, this is definitely a good option to go with. However, when I built my first solar shower, the cost to produce one was closer to $80 rather than the ~$150 it costs now (inflation, am I right?!), so the calculus was a little different. The Yakima RoadShower (which is the name brand car-mounted solar shower) comes in 4, 7, and 10 gallon options. There are a few non-Yakima options out there too.
If you have the money, and want a solution quickly, this is definitely a good option to go with. However, when I built my first solar shower, the cost to produce one was closer to $80 rather than the ~$150 it costs now (inflation, am I right?!), so the calculus was a little different. The Yakima RoadShower (which is the name brand car-mounted solar shower) comes in 4, 7, and 10 gallon options. There are a few non-Yakima options out there too.
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SOLAR SHOWER BAGS
The cheapest solar shower options are definitely shower bags. These bags generally come in 3 to 5 gallon (incredibly strong) black bags. You fill the bags with water early in the day and set it in the sun. When you are ready to take a shower, you hang the bag somewhere high, like on a tree branch, or set it on your roof and let gravity feed the water. I am not a fan of shower bags - they are really heavy, and it can be a struggle to mount it high enough to shower not on your knees. Since the water is gravity-fed, you really don't get much water pressure, and I don't feel like it gets you that clean. I would personally opt to just dump a Naglene of water over my head a few times. But if you need a shower option every once in a while, and want it to be relatively warm, a shower bag is an option.
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BAG-LIKE OPTIONS THAT SOLVE THE PRESSURE ISSUE
There are a few shower bag or bag-like options out there that have attempted to solve the weight and pressure issues described above. These options allow you to pressurize the water with a hand or foot pump, so you don't have to hang the bag in a tree or suffer from poor pressure. Depending on the form factor, these options might not heat the water as well as the solar bags listed above.
(DISCLOSURE: I have never used this option.) |
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WATER PUMPS
This solution is simply a small batter-powered electric water pump that you submerge in a bucket of water that's connected to a nozzle. This option solves the water pressure problem, but unless you're also buying a solar bag to heat your water in, the showers you take will likely be quite cold. One brand (Hike Crew) has attempted to solve the problem with temperature by including a propane heater between the pump and the nozzle. Although, as you can imagine the solution is quite a bit larger and more expensive than the others.
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