Off Grid Shower

[admin]

This is an email from Rick

> Been using my XL stove everyday while I'm building. I'm out in the woods...no power, no water, etc..
>
> The XL heats my shower water (that's another story) and my meals. I've also designed, and have started to build a support that holds a grill surface on top. Two XL stoves can cook on the expanded metal mesh, or with the grill on top of the mesh, cook a breakfast of eggs, hashbrowns, and pancakes, and with the grill flipped over it can grill a steak. The XL can boil a 1/2 gallon pot in 15 - 20 minutes. That time could be substancially less if I were located in a hardwood forest. All I have to burn are pinecones, twigs, and cedar scraps. If you like I'll send you the drawings of my stove grilling attachment .
>
> I no longer use the white gas stove and seldom use the propane. Most all my water and food are prepared on the Woodgas XL stove. A great product.
>
> -Rick


Right now, until the cooking grid is finished
I'm using the stove conventionally...to boil
water for the shower, and to cook food. I've
attached a drawing of the cooking grid.
The lid of the cooking grid is removable (has
a handle in the top, and is made from heavy
gauge steel, and a length of 4" pipe that is
quartered along the length of the pipe. The
top of the grid is made from heavy gauge
expanded steel mesh, and a store bought
griddle can be placed on top for hash browns,
eggs, and pancakes, or flipped over and used
to grill meat.

-Rick

Also, here's a letter I submitted to a newsgroup.
It describes the shower:



Re: Letter Showering with Just One Gallon of Water
<http://www.survivalblog.com/2010/04/showering_with_just_one_gallon.html>

I don’t smoke.

I never cared for the taste of alcohol.

I don’t gamble, chase women, over eat, or really have any vices at all…
other than my shower. I LOVE a long and hot shower but I was amazed to
discover that I could have a long and enjoyable hot shower with as
little as three quarts of water.


I found the letter; “Showering with Just One Gallon of Water
<http://www.survivalblog.com/2010/04/showering_with_just_one_gallon.html>”
fascinating as I have been doing just that off and on for the
last five years. Inside a small cabin I installed a new (and free!)
fiberglass shower stall. I set the fiberglass (trade name Fiberglas)
enclosure atop a frame of 2x4 lumber then placed the five gallon bucket
below the drain and quickly improvised
a garden sprayer as the shower head. A cheap shower rod and curtain
completed the picture. The result was a hot, long, and welcome shower at
the end of a hard day’s work.


I recently decided to relax and have a long and enjoyable shower. I just
took my time and I really didn’t care how much precious hot water I
used. I splurged. I over indulged. It was wonderful. That shower came to
just six quarts of water!

As time has passed changes have been made, and for those who wish to
follow the shower-sprayer plan, here is what I
did, and what I would do differently:

_Get down!_
The shower enclosure sits atop a platform and this elevated platform
should be as low to the floor as possible. If built
from ¾” x 1 ½” lumber and 3/8” CD-X plywood skins, the platform keeps a
low profile and is much stronger than a simple
2 x 4 frame. This forms a torsion box which is very rigid and has a
lower profile than a frame that is built-up from 2x4 lumber. When
assembled with Elmer’s waterproof exterior glue (a truly amazing and
cost effective product!) and pneumatic staples, the platform is very
light weight and unbelievably strong.

_Hug the ground!_
Do away with the four or five gallon bucket and substitute a plastic six
gallon boat gas tank. The fuel tank has a much lower profile than the
buckets, and thus keeps your first step into and out of the shower to a
workable height. Yes, the fuel tanks are expensive (mine was $28), but
it will be a small expense you won’t ever need to ponder as you lie wet
and naked on the cold floor after slipping while taking that tall step
from the shower to the floor. Get the fuel tank. It holds more waste
water, has a cap, offers less sloshing when emptying, and keeps your
shower closer to the floor.

_Use a soft extension
_Stretch a section of bicycle inner tube over your drain spout. This
keeps splashing from the drain spout to tank at a minimum, and the inner
tube can extend into the fuel tank. __

_Give yourself a rough lip!_
If you use a pre-moulded enclosure it may have a 3-4” lip. Standing on
that slick ridge is risky and stepping over that
lip can give you a slippery push-off angle from the shower floor. Either
scenario is bad. Use some 120 grit sandpaper
to rough the lip (a few passes is all you need; you’re not scraping
barnacles off a ship) and then buy a spray can of
“For Outdoor Use” polyurethane. Spray the roughened step, and then from
a high altitude, lightly (between the fingertips) sprinkle silica sand
onto the wet polyurethane. Follow the directions on the spray can, and
apply several coats. Your shower lip is now slip-free.

_Zip your lip!_
When shopping for a shower curtain, look for one that has small magnets
or steel sealed into the edges. Next, epoxy a few magnets to the rough
side of the enclosure. That lip between the curtain and enclosure is now
snug, keeps the curtain from billowing into your space, and keeps
splashing to a minimum. Warning! IF you decide to use those free
neodymium magnets from a scrapped computer hard drive, be certain to
remove the magnet from the steel backing. This will reduce the magnet’s
strength and keep your shower curtain from tearing when you try to get
into or out of the shower. If the steel backing can’t be removed from
the magnet, then mount the magnet on a ¾” thick wood spacer. Those
magnets are just too strong for the shower curtain. Do a quick test
before you glue those magnets into place. Don’t buy magnets from a
fabric store. They are just too weak to be of any use.

_Get steamed!_
When the temperature is 10°F outdoors and 50*°*F inside, the last thing
you want is a cold shower. Those plastic garden sprayers can take a
surprising amount of heat but to keep the sprayer working over the long
term, add your hot water to cold water already sitting in the garden
sprayer. Those propane camp stoves are convenient (especially in a dark
forest!) but too slow and expensive when compared to the LE and XL
gassifier stoves. The small gassifiers burn waste wood (chips, pine
cones, twigs, small sticks, wood pellets) and are capable of bringing
two quarts of water to a rapid boil in just a few minutes. Heat a lot of
hot water, not a small amount of boiling water. Water is a progressive
heat-sink and the hotter it is heated the much greater amount of fuel is
required; it saves time and fuel to bring a large amount of water to
140°F than a smaller amount of water to 212°F. Your water is ready
before the steam starts to rise from the pot.__

_Top brass:_
Don’t shop price when buying a sprayer! Get a brass piston rod and a
brass nozzle. A plastic piston rod will soon bend and break, (What
'smatter, buddy? Piston broke. "yeah, me too." Old joke) and a brass
nozzle just has a much longer life than those plastic nozzles. One thing
about those brass nozzles… no matter how strong you might be, a tight
grip is just no match for a soapy brass nozzle. You will want to change
the spray pattern during your shower and a few quick passes with a
Dremel can put slip-proof grooves into that nozzle. For durability and
long life brass is tops!

_A few other things to consider when buying a sprayer_:
•A two gallon sprayer is a total luxury, also you don’t have to pump a
two gallon sprayer as often as a one gallon sprayer. You’ll figure that
one out when you’re in the shower. Consider a two gallon sprayer over a
one gallon sprayer but only if it has the same or better features. Don’t
sacrifice quality for volume!

•Get a large stall. If you do slip you want to fall through a curtain,
not a glass door; but that curtain will infringe on your interior space
more than a glass door. You will also be sharing space with your
sprayer. A small shower stall will save precious floor space but is a
real headache when vying for room in that small confine.

•Moulded soap dish. A shower stall with a soap dish or tray molded in at
chest height is wonderful. Use a pad that will keep the soap above the
soap tray. I use a flexible soap pad with small moulded-in fingers that
help the soap to dry. Mushy soap is a headache.

•Use hard water. My family stopped by for a visit and they were kind
enough to bring extra water…soft water. I recalled the commercial,
“Dawn, it gets grease out of your way!”. What a better way to save
water! Why not use Dawn dish washing detergent to cut the body oils, and
accumulated dirt? It took many gallons of water to remove the detergent
and soft water. Now I only shower with hard water and Dove. My guess is
that a home-made soap (made with lye) is better than a store bought soap
bar, which in all truth, is a detergent bar. I also tried Ivory. If you
decide to use a store bought product, Dove is just better.

•Hang the sprayer up and out of the way. My enclosure didn’t come with
hardware. To hang the sprayer up off the floor
use ½” galvanized close nipples, two couplings, a 45° coupling, and a
large (5 x 5”) metal plate to spread the bending loads. The entire
assembly is passed through the opening provided for the shower head. I
used duct tape to seal the faucet opening. Yeah, nothing fancy… .

•To save on laundry (bath sheets are nothing but a nuisance!) I
substitute wash cloths for hand towels, and hand towels for bath towels.
You can wipe enough water off your body before toweling off, and do well
with only a hand towel.

Just one last thing…don’t forget to dump your waste water!

[admin]

Jonathan,

Thank you for your information on the innovative use of the woodgas stove from one of your customers.
Especially the construction details for a very economic shower are interesting. I made some calculations on the minimum amout of warm water needed for a shower, but the practical experience results show that the amount is much lower. Until now, I believed that you would need the Mega for warming the amount of water for a shower, but the results now show that the XL can do the job.
If you have more of these customer feedbacks, I would be very interested in them. Do you know of customers who make woodgas with the woodgas stove for powering a small generator e.g. a grass lawn mower? I am trying to find out a manner to do this but I don't know exactly how to realize this interesting application.
I read an interesting article on the site of the BEF from Mr. Tom Reed with the title: "The Up-downdraft gasifier for metal melting "the Dasifier".
This could be a key to use the woodgas stove as a woodgas generator for powering small engines.
I have done some experiments with the LE last months in order to improve efficiency. I am still working out my very simple method, but test results already show a significant reduction of necessary wood amounts for a cooking session. Refueling is no longer needed, a single small initial batch of biomass will do the job. I shall inform you on this soon.

Best regards,

Bas Gierkink (Netherlands)

[minrlwtr]

You can get a portable 12v rv water pump off ebay for 50 bucks or sportsmans guide has a bigger one for 90. heat your water in a steel garbage can up on bricks over your gasifier ,use a 15 w solar panel to recharge battery, pump it in for bathtub or shower,

[admin]

From Rick:

I'm away building the cabin and there is no internet or even cell phone service there. Rightnow I'm down in the low desert restocking my supplies, and getting a lot morebuilding materials for the cabin. I'll be heading back to the cabin on Monday.

Last week I used the woodgas stove in a torrential downpour. I wrote an article about it, but the article is only on a ruled notebook...nothing I can e-mail. No pictures... I was already wet enough just running a few feet from the porch to the stove, and the camera was in the truck which was several hundred feet away. Yes, it really is possible to use the stove in a pouring rain. I had been installing fiberglass insulation and used the stove to heat three gallons of water for a nice, long hot shower. I took my time, used a lot of water trying to flush the glass fibers off my skin. I used almost exactly two gallons.

The cabin is finally well insulated. I went to bed at 61 F., and overnight, withbody heat only in a 400 square foot area the temperature rose to 63 F.! Outside it was a cold and miserable night. The downpour continued until early morning, and though we are approaching the Summer solstace the nights are still cold. I've beensurprised to not see snow on the mountains. It's cold at night, but not that cold.