Vehicle Shower @ ExplorOz Articles

Imagine yourself after a hot day of driving, hiking and setting up camp… you have trekked through desert dust and your muscles are tired and sore. What better way is there to wash and scrub up than under an invigorating hot shower. But you’re in the most remote part of Australia, so it must be a dream, right? Wrong – we’re not talking about cold showers here, or even solar hot water showers but real hot showers with pressure that you can enjoy on even the most remote outback trip. Most of the components for these showers are installed under the bonnet of your vehicle and utilises the engines cooling system to heat up an external water supply. This supply may be water from a creek or water-filled container and is pumped to a Heat Exchange Unit and then back to your shower – nice and hot. So now you like the idea? Yes, most of us do, so let’s look go over the common questions.

How Much Water is Used?

Typically, a 5 – 10L bucket of water is suitable for a shower for one person. Recycling shower water is a smart trick for showering the family. Simply, stand in a big bucket while you shower with the inlet hose taking the run-off back into the system. This way you can cycle the water through the heat exchanger continuously. Soap suds etc do not damage the heat exchange unit.

How long your bucket of water takes to empty depends on the pressure that your pump delivers the water and if any flow restrictor is implemented on your shower head. You can do the maths by working out how many litres of water the pump is designed to deliver. Some water pumps are designed to deliver around 4 litres of water a minute (4 LPM), whilst others may deliver up to 7 litres per minute (7 LPM).