Showering - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Larry · RV-Dreams Community Member

Showering

Old Snipe · RV-Dreams Family Member

Take a "Sea Shower". Turn on the water to quickly wet down, turn it off, lather up, then rinse off. You'll use alot less water that way, probably just a couple of gallons. Your gray tank will thank you, too.

Best Regards!

ehde · RV-Dreams Community Member

I bought a replacement shower head in Home Depot that has a flow rate of about a 1/2 gal per minute. Five minute showers are not the problem.

Biggest water use/tank filling offender is dish washing. (Old habits die slowly.) My spouse likes to use the soapy sponge/rinse water running continuously method of washing dishes. Claims the pots, pans, dishes, and utensils come out cleaner that way, and won't let me wash the dishes because when I do them "they're greasy". If we have all our meals in the coach we're lucky if we get three days between dumping and refilling the water tank.

dreamjosie · RV-Dreams Family Member

I never heard it called a "Sea Shower" before. That's an interesting term. It's the same thing we have all been calling a "military shower". When we first went out on the road, I couldn't imagine doing that, but having now done it, can't say it's all that bad. I prefer doing that when I don't have sewer hookup rather than using the campshowers. But only if we're staying no more than 3-4 days. If we're staying longer without hookups, I'll save my grey tank capacity for doing the dishes and keeping the kitchen clean.

-- Edited by dreamjosie at 11:39, 2006-09-03

Old Snipe · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hi Josie,

Sea shower is the term that was beaten into my head, I'm a Coastie, and many of the cutters I sailed in, during my seagoing days, didn't carry alot of water or had difficulty desalinating enough water to supply the cutter and all the crew. The cutter (ship's) needs always came first.

I won't go into the details of washing clothes, but sometimes it involved a length of line, a mesh laundry bag and dragging the clothes behind the ship. You had to tie a good knot!

Best Regards!

dreamjosie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Old Snipe: Hmmm I have a picture in my mind of your clothes washing, and it's not pretty.

I have a hard enough time getting my clothes and towels to dry when I'm near the ocean and salt is in the air. I can't imagine actually washing my clothes in the salt water and then trying to get them to dry. Yikes!

One of the things we have not discussed yet in regards to this subject or the washer/dryer topic, or any other that involves boondocking, sewer hookups, or lack thereof, and how it affects how we live our life, and that is tank capacity. How you shower, or how often, or what you can and cannot do will vary considerably depending on your grey and black tank capacity. The capacities vary widely by manufacturer, and size of rig. We have a 70 gal. fresh water tank, and our grey and black are 55 gal. each. Some rigs have less, some have more.

I wish our tanks were bigger, and I would pay more attention to that feature the next time I was looking at what rig to buy. The black at 55 is more than adequate, but the grey could definitely be bigger.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have a positive water shut off for our shower from here: http://www.rvwaterfilterstore.com/UsefulGadgets.htm . A good $5 investment. We turn on the shower water, get wet, shut it off with the shut off, soap up, on goes the water for a rinse and then we are done. Uses much less water than normal.

Stay with the standard noisy water pump in your RV, the high flow ones will have you using more water out of your tank.

If you want a long shower stay in full hookups or use the campground showers.

blijil · RV-Dreams Family Member

We always called it a Navy shower. Just don't expect our teenage daughters to get by on 1-2 gallons of water per shower. It's a hair thing and they are really stressed to hold it to 6 gallons and will easily use up to 18 gallons or more if they think they can get away with it. We make them haul there own water at 6 gallons a jug. Funny how it reduces the water usage.

Interesting comments.

Larry

Doncat · RV-Dreams Family Member

Ever notice that when you use the shower cutoff and then "soap up", when you cut the water back on it can get kind of cold.....

Incentive to rush the soaping job...

dreamjosie · RV-Dreams Family Member

We've never had that problem with the temperature change in our shower. Wonder why yours would do that

Tmcblane · RV-Dreams Family Member

Doncat wrote:

Ever notice that when you use the shower cutoff and then "soap up", when you cut the water back on it can get kind of cold..... Incentive to rush the soaping job...

Pretty easy fix for this, go to Rvsurplus and salvage and buy an inline check valve. Install it in the hot water line as close to the shower as you can. What happens is when you shut off the water with the button there is a surge of cold water into the hot line. The check valve stops that. The valve costs $5 and is thread male and female.

injunear · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hello Everyone,
We are new to this forum confuse

. I've been reading through this descusion. While spending 9 years in the Navy we called these "Navy showers" . When water got really low we took "bird baths". Which was a sink full of water, about 1.5 gallon.

injunear

PS Old Snipe I am an Old Snipe too !!

LeslieW · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have found that to turn off the shower at the head we end up with a lot of leakage. Our solution is to turn off each knob; we know that when we turn it back on it is "all hot" and cold as needed. We live this way most of the time.'

Leslie

pierreandcolleen · RV-Dreams Family Member

5 minutes should be plenty as long as you don't have long hair and shave your legs :) As the previous post mentioned, be sure to use the water saving shutoff while lathering up. When we boondock we often use our outdoor shower as long as no one is around. I have a shower curtain I can rig up with some suction cup hooks, but it doesn't hide much if the wind is blowing. Best to shower outside after dark or in a swimsuit.

Serengeti2001 · RV-Dreams Family Member

And now for the really quick!!
How about "Dry Clean".
Doesn't need any water.
Just a little 'right guard' under each arm and at other select places. hehehe

Old Snipe · RV-Dreams Family Member

injunear wrote:

Hello Everyone,
We are new to this forum . I've been reading through this descusion. While spending 9 years in the Navy we called these "Navy showers" . When water got really low we took "bird baths". Which was a sink full of water, about 1.5 gallon.

injunear

PS Old Snipe I am an Old Snipe too !!

Don't know if the forum is ready for TWO Old Snipes! biggrin

Best Regards!

Speedhitch · RV-Dreams Family Member

A couple of things I would like to add here....One is that if you have soft water you will never rinse off the soap...Two if you don't get too dirty wet wips clean real well. We use them when we just need to freshen up some. No it is not the same as a good old fashion hot shower but it does get you clean and you might get to take longer showers if you can skip a day here and there. Last but not least ....our washer is HE and we use less water washing clothes than dishes or showers. So if you are not all that clean at least your clothes can smell good....

Speedy

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Well, thanks to injunear and Old Snipe, an old mystery has now been solved.

Many years ago, as a young man, we used to send people out "snipe hunting" and no one EVER found a snipe.

Now, I presume that since that searching was done in the Oklahoma Panhandle (thus just slightly inland), it was impossible to find. Presuming from your posts, we should have been looking around the oceans somewhere.

Oh, well. When we tired of "snipe hunting" other interests usually replaced the searching.

Terry

-- Edited by Terry and Jo on Saturday 11th of April 2009 08:19:16 PM

-- Edited by Terry and Jo on Saturday 11th of April 2009 08:20:17 PM

Airborne · RV-Dreams Community Member

My wife and I do a lot of boondocking/dry camping with grand kids. When in the Army we used wet wipes for weeks when deployed. So when out dry camping we use wet wipes one day, clean the private parts, wipe down the body, and shower every other day using the Navy shower technique. We have a an oxiginated shower head with a shut off valve on it so we turn the water off at the head but it leaks a bit so we have a water pitcher in the shower that we put the shower head into so we collect the water. We then use this to flush the toilet. We make the kids use the camp bathroom through out the day to help. I love the idea of showering outside when you can that Pierre suggested then your gray water tank does not get filled as quickly. We also collect the dish water and use it to flush with. This helps us keep our fresh water as long as possible as well as have your gray water tank last longer as the gray water fills much faster than the black water tank. I keep a six gallon jug in the truck and anytime I go into town or see a water spicket I fill it up and bring it back to the TT and refill. Other ideas are to use wet wipes for counter cleaning and use hand sanitizer instead of washing hands. I can get by with three days of an electric shaver and then one day with a razor. I do this all to have our fresh water last as long as possible as sometimes we don't leave our camp for six or seven days to get more water and want to make sure my wife has her shower when she wants it.

I make sure I have a water bandit www.amazon.com/dp/B000EDOSKG/

I also keep on hand universal water key www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-4-Way-Sill****-Key-UWP0002D/204284856

rodeojoe · RV-Dreams Family Member

Very happy with the possibilities listed here. I have been worried about the showering issue as I am spoiled at home! I want to go on the road in the RV but this is one type of comfort from home I don't wish to give up!

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

hhhmmmmmm.......when Im truly boondocking I have an outside portable shower unit......5 gallons of water from the nearest brook in a bucket ....put the portable hot water heater/ pump in it and instant hot shower!!!........

of course this is if you are truly boondocking , this will create big problems for people in parking lots or dry camping........but if your in the woods it solves where the water goes and where it comes from !!!

ticat900 · RV-Dreams Family Member

TEN Minutes for a shower ? what are washing in the shower a Car? LOL

-- Edited by ticat900 on Friday 18th of December 2015 02:28:49 PM

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

ticat900 wrote:
TEN Minutes for a shower ? what are washing in the shower a Car? LOL

-- Edited by ticat900 on Friday 18th of December 2015 02:28:49 PM

We in the Navy called that a "Hollywood" shower. Always the first thing to do after hitting the beach on shoreleave. biggrin

Lucky Larry · RV-Dreams Community Member

I hope no one laughs but my secret weapon for drought is baking soda.

During hurricane power outages my TT becomes Home - running water, lights, easier to keep cool etc. - plus it is a way to save genny fuel for more important things like keeping my freezers hard.

One thing I did was turn on the shower just long enough to get wet, sprinkle some baking soda on a wet washcloth, and give it a quick vigorous rub down followed by a quick rinse. Time limit for both wetdowns one minute.

Even when I was pretty ripe from the summer heat the BS bath knocked out any stink and left me feeling cleaner than a soap shower.

I saved the runoff to see how much I used and found the BS water did a great job cleaning the tub as well.

One way to stretch out your water supply.

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is great for all sorts of things. Brushing teeth, cleaning sinks, tubs, showers, toilets, 'sweeting' drains & holding tanks, helping keep kity litter fresh, etc. Never go without it and a supply of vinegar.

Barb

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Larry wrote:
Is a 5-10 minute shower reasonable while boondocking? What are the shower head flow rates?

You really have to turn the water off to soap up anyway…most RV showers aren't large enough to let you get out of the spray.

LarryW21 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Larry wrote:
Is a 5-10 minute shower reasonable while boondocking? What are the shower head flow rates?

NOPE!

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

Neil and Connie wrote:
Larry wrote:
Is a 5-10 minute shower reasonable while boondocking? What are the shower head flow rates?
You really have to turn the water off to soap up anyway…most RV showers aren't large enough to let you get out of the spray.

What? I have a very large shower and can soap up with water running if I want to. That said, when we don't have full hookups, I turn the flow off to soap up, then back on to rinse. Can go 12+ days that way without ever feeling like I'm skimping.