DIY Camp Shower

First off this is not my idea originally. I read it on another forum site, and figured I needed a shower anyway, so I might as well document the process.

In this article, I'm going to show you how to make a camp shower for around $20. It took me about 20 minutes to assemble and test the entire thing.

I picked up the following parts at the local hardware store.

• 1 - 1 gallon Bleach Spraying system - $16
• 1 - 10' 3/8 diameter clear vinyl tube - $4

The first thing I did was replace the short 4' hose with the 10' vinyl tube. This required the use of a sharp knife, so be careful as you cut the old tube away. You'll be working close to the "o" ring, make sure you do not cut it, and do not cut to deep into the plastic adapter or you might end up with a leak. I used a little bit of dish soap, and warmed the new tube up in some hot water to make it easier to slide onto the tank adapter.

After that, I completed the assembly per the enclosed directions with one other minor modification. That involved shortening the sprayer wand down to about 6". Once again, you need to be careful as you will need to use a knife (serrated works best), or a fine toothed hack saw. Make sure you do not cut to close to the bend.

Now fill it up with some water, pump it up and spray away.

Our bottle came with the flat spray nozzle installed. We replaced it with the provided round spray nozzle to get more of a shower feel.

My test determined that I could get about 10 minutes of light to medium spray out of a 1 gallon spray bottle. That should be enough for at least two people to take a quick shower.

While this setup doesn't push the same amount of water out as your home shower, it does provide enough to wet down, lather up, and rinse.

I'm sure you can use your imagation to figure out how to make the wand hands free. One thing we will probably do is to place a large rubber band on the yellow tab so we can use both hands to lather and rinse with. Heck we can't think of everything.

While I haven't tried it, I'm thinking you could spray paint the tank black and leave it out in the sun to get some free 'warmer' water. Or you could alway heat up some water on the stove.

Have fun.