Shower in RV [survey]

[Rick91]

Dear RVer,

I am a student designer, and for my graduation I will be designing a shower (for in the RV). What occurs to me is that time under the shower is very limited, because of the water tank. In some RV's there also seem to be warm water issues because of the boiler/ heating tank's capacity.

If you would take time to fill in this survey, it would greatly help me. It will only take about 2 minutes, and for me is to collect some data on whether or not a more luxurious shower would be beneficial for you (for me it would).

Survey link: survey (control + click should open it in a new window)

Thank you very much

[Bumpyroad]

zekegb wrote:
To use the shower in the motorhome or not? Sometimes I use the CG shower - nice long shower. As long as facility is reasonably clean, that's OK. Often we use the shower in the motorhome - don't have to trek to the utility bldg. In our 29' Trek we have a large bathroom with a shower I can move around in (6 foot). But then we don't have a separate bedroom. More living space and a big bathroom - sounds like a winner to us.

yep, my previous MH had a large 46-48 inch tub/shower and 99% of the time I used the campground facilities. only exceptions were when it was a long hike up the hill, was cold and rainy out, or if the facilities turned out to be substandard. the best non-motorhome shower I had was at Fishing Bridge that had the greatest showers I have ever seen.
bumpy

[zekegb]

To use the shower in the motorhome or not? Sometimes I use the CG shower - nice long shower. As long as facility is reasonably clean, that's OK. Often we use the shower in the motorhome - don't have to trek to the utility bldg. In our 29' Trek we have a large bathroom with a shower I can move around in (6 foot). But then we don't have a separate bedroom. More living space and a big bathroom - sounds like a winner to us.

[tpi]

The shower is not the weak link in my RV. Mine has a standard 6 gallon Atwood water heater. The initial warmup is about 30 minutes, and if the switch is left on the water heater thermostat will keep water appropriately hot. Shower time is more than sufficient when hooked up to utilities.

Length of showers: Plenty if the tank capacity is sufficient. If dry camping shower length is limited by tank capacity. I cannot think of any method other than recirculating shower water which could extend the time. Recirculating water would be the only potential advance in RV showering, and there are lot of pitfalls there, debris, odors, bacteria, etc.

In my opinion the one RV system which is long overdue for an upgrade is the generator. These need to be fuel injected to reduce or eliminate the "maintenance run time." In many cases generators accumulate more hours for maintenance running than for actual useful work. Fuel injection would also allow for automatic altitude compensation and much cleaner exhaust via a catalyst. Any engine running in close proximity to people needs to be as clean as possible. The technology is there, has been for years.

[Harvey51]

How about a shower that uses the same water recirculating?

[CA_Traveler]

Our last rig had a 10 gal tank set to 140 degrees. Never ran out of hot water.

[D___M]

To conserve water, I shower with my girl friend.

[silvercorvette]

botts12 wrote:
You need to realize that if we have a full hook up site, we can shower as long as the hot water lasts. The key to shower length is not the hot water as much as the holding tank. When we do not have a sewer connection and must hold our waste water for days, the length of the shower shortens so we can hold longer by using less water. We have a gas/electric hot water heater that is 10 gallons. With a flash hot water heater and a full hookup site (ie one with sewer hookup) the length of the shower is almost unlimited.

Ditto, if I am hooked up the electric water heater is on so there is zero minutes wait time for hot water, with an endless supply of water I usually take a 10 minute shower. If I am parked without hook ups I flip on the propane water heater, by the time I have everything secured the water is hot.

[Nolan]

When picking out our trailer one of the things was plenty of room in the shower. I'm 6 ft. 3 in. so that knocked out a lot of trailers. The Oxygenics showerhead was a great improvement. Have a 10 gallon water heater and take around 5 to 10 minute showers. Have never run out of hot water.

[Fire_Instructor]

wa8yxm wrote:

1: BIGGER The standard RV shower makes a phone booth look large.

Check-out what the Forest River family of RV's calls the "garden shower" stall. It'a a corner type shower stall, that is actually bigger than the shower stall in some hotels that I've stayed in! FR started using it years ago, but in recent years, I've seen it in a few other mfgr's product lines.... A big guy like me can actually bend to wash my feet and lower legs without my butt against one wall, and my head against the opposite wall!!!

[bikendan]

link to survey didn't work for me.

[GMT830]

A couple of comments....

We will only camp at full hookups because of the shower issue. A one night stay would be different, dump on the way out.
The navy shower thing never worked for us. The main problem was that when you close the shower head you setup a gravity loop and the hot water starts running down the cold circuit. When you turn it back on you are getting full hot water out of both sides and its HOT!. We just learned to shower quickly and leave the water running. Our current TT has electric over gas HW Heater. The recovery is very fast which of course means we can take longer showers because the makeup rate is stronger. We have only showered once each in it but had plenty of water. Next trip I'll take a longer shower to get a feel for just how long I can go. If we have to replace the HW heater at any point, I will go with one of the high temp units with a mixing valve. And a 10 gallon electric over gas if it will fit. I think that gives an effective 17-20 gallons of hot water? That's pushing a 10 minute shower.
We lived in a camper with a 6 gallon gas only for a few months. We got it down after a while. I would run the hot water till the burner lit. I would wait about a minute and start the shower before the burner went out. I sometimes had to trim the cold back towards the end of the shower if I went long.

[wa8yxm]

The two things I will suggest (Well 3 actually) are as follows.

1: BIGGER The standard RV shower makes a phone booth look large
2: Hand held (Telepone type) head This at least is fairly standard
3: Oxygenics head (Uses less water, gives longer shower)


It would be nice if the stall was big enough to support a foot rest or seat but that's asking a bit.

Check out the walk in bathtubs. Much better shower design.

[wintersun]

For your survey you should group people according to the amount of time they spend on the road with their RV and whether they boondock - camp at primative campsites.

We travel and stay at any given campsite for 1-2 nights on average. If one campground does not have showers and another one we will be at within the next couple of days has showers we will wait to use the showers at this location.

When a larger than average RV shower is important it will shape the decision as to which type and how large an RV is purchased. Trailers have more space for showers than slide-in campers or Class B or C motorhomes.

There are a number of factors in terms of whether an RV has a "wet" or "dry" bath with the latter having a dedicated shower area. Even so we have friends that have dry baths and never use the showers, only the ones at the campgrounds and RV parks where they prefer to stay for this reason in particular.

As a student your professor evidently has not taught you how to do proper research and survey techniques. First you need to understand the general aspects of a situation and then do the survey to provide a means for analysis. You have done this backwards. I would spend time at local RV parks and different type of campgrounds (in terms of amenities provided) and as them about showers. Take their feedback and then and only then create a survey.

[MitchF150]

For me, trying to take a shower in an RV that does not have a full size shower to begin with is way too much work to make it worth it.. Again, for me... 🙂

The shower in my trailer is so small, my head hits the ceiling and I'm touching the wall and the curtain and with a 6 gallon HW tank, it's not like I can take a long hot shower that I can at home...

No, when I'm "camping", I take sponge baths and clean the major parts and that's good enough for me.. Or, if I really need that hot shower, I'll buy some tokens and visit the camps facilities.. Nothing wrong with them, as long as they are clean.. I do wear my water shoes however.. 😉

Anyway, for me, the need for a full on hot shower is not that important to me while I'm supposed to be 'ruffing' it... 😉

I can take a shower anytime I want, but when I'm out 'camping' for the 4 days I'm doing that, it's kinda nice to not deal with it..

To each their own and if you need to shower a couple times a day... Do it! 🙂

Happy camping to all, no matter how you choose to do it!

Mitch