Outdoor showers
hot hot heat
We spent this past weekend at the property. Partially to relax and enjoy some cabin time, but also—always—to work. We cleaned the flow on some drainages, beat our way past a landslide, and spent a day burning a large brush pile which had amassed after a redwood toppled in last month’s storm.
My almost-too-hot shower that I spent almost-too-much-time-in was an essential reset between the day’s work and settling into the cabin.
Our current shower build is all function and no frills. I threw it together a couple years back in preparation for a week of feeding fire-killed trees into a rented wood chipper with Molly and friends. Up until that point—post-2020 wildfire anyway— we’d gotten by without a shower by keeping labor to just a day or two. But a full week in the grit grime and poison oak with nary a scrub down was too much to bear and too much to ask of friends.
Not unlike our early outhouse intentions, our initial shower motivation was to offer some elevated niceties to friends who were camping (and possibly laboring) on the property. A civilized shower, decent bathroom, solid company, and good food all go a long way.
We went hard on that first shower—a roughly 8 x 16 foot platform, suspended between two redwoods, and built from charred redwood. It was accessed via a short bridge, walled off on three sides to the camp and other tree decks, and open on the high side out to the woods. The tallest corner was maybe twelve feet off the ground, but because the shower was perched on a hillside where the earth quickly fell away, it looked and felt like you were 20-30 feet up. It was… glorious.
Rather than use our heating unit’s stock shower head we poised a nozzle directly overhead with a spray pattern that really enveloped you. The propane heater was tucked behind one of the trees, and the propane tank was stored under the deck, alongside insulated pipe that routed the water down and around. All this was to keep the shower experience a bit more analogue.
Let’s talk about those off-grid propane heaters…
I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten more visceral pleasure and outright joy from a $200 product. The emotional wellness that comes from a hot shower—especially one in an otherwise cold environment that lacks shelter—is nearly incalculable. It would easily be a worthwhile purchase at ten times the price. These units put out hotter water than you’d ever want, and do so using a fairly meager amount of propane. (We refill our tank maybe twice a year.) They get their spark from a couple of batteries that seem to last forever and the plumbing hooks up to a standard garden hose. Easy. Simple. High impact. Low effort.
Though we have run into three issues with using them...
First, mice made a home in one of our old heaters. This killed the heater. And a few mice. Not all of them though… this fella went back to the woods.
Second, on our most recent heater, a factory-included (and in retrospect, undersized) rubber washer at the hose connection worked loose and blasted its way into the pipe, clogging the flow and shutting off the heater. This issue was not immediately diagnosable and made for some confused troubleshooting. But I eventually fished it out and replaced it and we’ve had no problems since.
Third problem was water pressure. These heaters require a certain amount of pressure for the propane to kick on and our tank has occasionally run low enough to cause trouble. For most people, this would be less of a problem… you either have reliable water pressure from your hose, or you are fully off-grid and need to run a setup with a 12v pump. We just happened to exist somewhere in between for a couple years.
The mouse dilemma was an easy solve— and a precaution I’d advise to anyone leaving these heaters outside… We bought owls.
I kid… We screwed stainless mesh screen over all the gaps. And I do mean all the gaps… mice can fit through smaller spaces than you’d imagine.
If you care about aesthetics and vibe I’ll concede that these on-demand heaters, which are designed to be right there next to you while showering, are not fantastic looking. HIGHLY functional, sure. And oh-so-enjoyable. But, they’re pretty industrial when left out in the open.
If you don’t feel like doing all the work of plumbing a hidden heater, as we did on our first shower1, you could go the route of our friend Joey. The outdoor shower at his house uses the same type of heater, but he hid it behind a wall and cut out some holes to access controls.
I could imagine that most folks were with me up until this point… a luxurious heated shower to keep the morale up during your free labor campout in the woods is obvious. We all get that. But choosing an outdoor shower at home, where a perfectly good indoor shower is mere feet away… perhaps that’s less relatable for a few of you.
Hear me out.
There’s a minor thrill to standing there, stripped down under the trees and stars, ensconced in a cocoon of steam, maybe with a few birds or frogs chirping along. No matter the weather it’s likely to be at least a little uncomfortable out there. But the hot water pouring over you is cozy. It’s safe. And it feels all the better with the knowledge that just beyond there’s a light breeze out there waiting. That minor commune with nature paired with the ritual of bathing is primordial. Pure zen. Your 68,000 BTU, 2.6 gallon per minute, on-demand propane water heater would have shook Buddha’s damn world.2 It’s worth trying.
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Technically all the manufacturers tell you not to do this anyway. The pressure drops when mixing cold water with hot down the line can cause hiccups that shut off the heater. These units are meant to do all their own temperature adjustments in-house. But with good pressure, it can work.
Buddha would have been equally shook that for a few hundred bucks one could essentially add a second shower to their home. Not a minor addition when hosting guests.
This is very cool. Though I was very disappointed that the link did not take me to a website where I could purchase a live owl...
That’s inspiring, makes me want to build one too :-)
What’s your strategy on winterizing your shower, do you have an easy way to drain all the water pipes? What about the heater, can you leave it outdoors with freezing temperatures ?