I decided to put a shower in by my pool to rinse off if needed. After mulling the design over and looking on here I came up with something that may work. I built a 6" dia schd 40 "tank" x 84" long. This is mounted inside a 8" dia steel pipe which is anchored into the ground. The 8" pipe is filled with water to help conduct the heat from the sun shining on the steel pipe to water in the 6" tank. My theory is the water in the 8" pipe will warm in the sun heating the 6" tank, when the shower chain is pulled, cold water will come in at the bottom, mixing and forcing the warmer water out at the top. I think this will give me a minute or two of a warm shower. Even when the water has cooled there will still be a +- 1" layer of hot water surrounding the tank to start rewarming the new water. I'll post some pics later. I still hav'nt recieved the rain showerhead and valve but will have the rest done today.
pool/solar shower, petaluma ca.
- Thread starter bobby1017
- Start date
an after thought- and looks like yours would be easy with the piece of hose- anyone copying your design may need to put a drain in to prevent freezing damage; maybe not an issue in petaluma, but others will need one.
madwil said:
Even here we prob have maybee 5 nights per winter that get cold enough to possibly cause damage. The hose will be dissconnected in winter.
I doubt anyone will copy this one though.
Got the shower head today, with the temps only about 70 deg f the water was warm, i'll post the pic tomorrow of the finished shower.
How much hot water are you getting out of it if you leave it wide open? Are you replacing the water between the PVC and metal? Does it get circulated out?
When the temp gets into the 80"s for the day there will be at least 5 min of 90 + water, since the pools only about 85, feels really warm. The shower head helps limit the flow so it lasts a while. If the temps only are in the 70's not so good. The "outer layer" of water between the pvc & metal evaporates slowly and I've refilled it twice but it was prob only about 12" low, havn't checked in a while. I did also put a little chlorine in there to keep any mosquito's dead if they were trying to reproduce.