Hot water? Where??

When I really sit down and think about what we need hot water for, I come up with only two things: dishwashing, and showers.

A few years ago, before we went to CREATION, I bought a solar shower bag. I thought it would be nice to have it on the camping trip. I was right. I remember how dusty it was. My hair got so full of dust you could put it in any position and it would STAY that way!!

I have long since lost that bag. But I figured nowadays they might not be so expensive to replace. Lo and behold....walmart had them. I bought 3 of them, each for $7ish.

I can put them on my back deck to heat water all day long, and then dump the water in the sink to wash dishes, so that takes care of the dish problem. But what about showers?

Someone on homestead.org posted their picture of their outdoor shower. VERY pretty. Its basically a small structure with lattice on the sides and vines growing on the lattice. Its surrounded by other trees and plants. It just looks lovely. I bet its very refreshing to shower out there.

We only own an acre though, and there is soon to be a development behind us. So, where to put an outdoor shower here? Of course! The deck!!

I took one of those shower bags and hung it on a hook. (I've GOT to come up with a better way to haul it up and down though, that bag is HEAVY and I don't have a very good back). Then I ordered one of those tent showers (its called a "multipurpose room"). Due to the way things worked out, I had to cut a hole in the back of the tent, but it works great. There is PLENTY of room in there to move around. And it was VERY refreshing to shower outside with the breeze. I felt VERY private though. And the water, once drained out of the bottom of the tent, can water the ground cover and peach tree that is right next to the deck, thus recycling the water.

My oldest daughter came home and said "did you really take a shower in THAT?". LOL. But my youngest couldn't wait to try it out.

The water pressure isn't all that great and like I said, hauling that bag up and down is hard. So I'll have to come up with something better, but for now, its a workable solution and we won't need to use the propane water heater for the rest of the summer.

But what about a permanent solution? Well, thank goodness for FREECYCLE. I advertised that I was looking for an old hot water heater that didn't have to work, but it couldn't leak. Someone did come through, so later this week I'm going to go get it.

I'm going to take off the casing and paint the steel drum inside black. Then enclose it in a wood box with a glass top. Voila, a solar hot water heater. All I have to do then is to reroute the plumbing from the existing hot water heater to the solar one. And I'd like to make it so I can run either of them independently if I want to.

I know in the dead of winter, the solar heater might not work so well, so I'm thinking I may enclose it in its own little glass house. Maybe that will extend its use to all year round then. In any case, it will save us on propane, which is getting as expensive as gasoline these days!