Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Preparing for Power Outage: The Solar Shower

A few years back I had a solar shower experience. A trail crew had these bags laying in the sun to warm and invited me, a dirty Colorado Thru hiker to enjoy a shower. It only held five gallons, so I was somewhat skeptical, but thought, hey, why not? They told me just grab a bag, and take it into a curtained off outdoor space and hang it up.


The hose hung down and the nozzle was easy to open and shut. Turned out, five gallons of hot water was plenty!
So, today I bought one for home use. Its been very hot and we're running the air conditioner a lot. Some how the thought came, why not utilize all this sunshine and heat and get us some solar heated water.
My partner and I agree, if this works at all, we'll turn off the water heater during the summer.


I got to thinking, while this clear plastic warms in the sun with a black plastic backing. I have a platypus and my car is legendary. Hot, an oven, and why not try this in the back window to serve as dish rinsing water?

If we are ever without power, we can still take a shower. Depending on the season, and the amount of sunlight, it will vary in temperatures. The directions state it should take about 3 hours.


Stay tuned for further reports and photos.

2 comments:

  1. That's probably not a bad idea. I could put one or two in storage, you never know what life will deal you. I hope I never find myself on the road where I'd need one, but it couldn't hurt.

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  2. I am going to try one in the back yard. Our nearest neighbor is quarter mile away, and its all woods. If the power goes out, I can fill this with filtered rain water, lay it in the sun, hang it up, and voila! Shower time. Our deep well would not be useable if the well pump wasn't hooked up to a generator....we should get one of those, too

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