Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Portable camp hot shower units.....?

Zodi go's to elk camp always.

I have a Coleman instant hotwater maker and it works very well.

Put that rubber mat over a pallet, it will keep dirt and mud from getting on it. We put a piece of the green astro turf (boat decking) on top of a pallet and it works great and keeps you off the ground.

Years ago, I had a ZODI unit and sold it after one season. Don't care for the low water output or warm up time when it gets below 40 degrees.

I now have a home-made on-board hot water system that's much better for the type of hunting/camping I do.

I do very little cold weather hunting anymore. Mostly Aug - Sept archery elk/antelope/deer. Maybe a late Oct deer rifle or damage elk permit.... but that's right at home, so no problem.

We used a Zodi unit last year on an antelope hunt and man did that feel great!!

I think for the uses I have for it, the Zodi will do just fine.

A coworker got a Zodi last fall and was very happy with it, I will be looking for a Zodi heater shorthly for this fall myself, my wife got me a Cabelas Deluxe shower with the 5 gal solar bag but I expect that will only good for summer camping.

True - but put a couple gallons of hot water off the stove in them and they work fine.. And you don't have to pack in all that other stuff, if you are hunting off-road, away from vehicular access.

I've built a number of showers out of less, out in remote camps, occupied for several months.

Wasn't pretty, but a 5 gallon white gas can (now obsolete), on an overhead platform with 6 feet of tubing and a vice-grip kept me clean for 3 months out on the Alaska Peninsula a number of decades ago. Tundra ponds ain't all they are cracked up to be as bathing facilities...

Another innovation was up Good News River in Southwest Alaska. I only jumped in that river once! Then I innovated my dog kennel into a bath tub. Old style kennels didn't have side vents- it was solid. I placed the top and bottom portion doors end to end, overlapping, melted bolt-holes thru the plastic with a nail heated on the Coleman, put some weather-stripping between the lips for a seal and bolted it together. 5 gallons of water heated to near boiling on the stove with cold water tempering made for a luxurious (under the circumstances) bath! A little cramped, but better than the river!

The solar shower with stove-heated water hung (outside) from the wall-tent ridgepole, with a feed sack for foot rug did just admirably for 6 of us in the Frank Church Wilderness elk hunt a decade or so back. Opps- make that 2 decades...

Think outside the box...

las,

We've done the hot water, temp'ed with cold water in the solar bag for years. The convenience of the Zodi or others like it are what I'm after.

There's some pretty crafty ideas here, for a fella to get clean!

Mixed results with solar bags. Zodi has rocked our hunting camps for a few years now.

Convenience definitely has its place. That Lance camper on the back of the Ram 3500 makes the wife happy when applicable to the task. Especially after the end of a multi-day or week-long backpacking trip..

We ain't puzzies - we still remote backpack miles back in and tent-camp in our 60's. But we are getting older and more solvent... Both are more desirable than the alternatives. Might as well throw in some perks....

I have one of these. Works really well.

Portable water heater

A stock pot full of hot water, dumped in a 5 gal bucket tempered with cold water to desired temp and a sauce pan to ladle it. Get wet, soap up, rinse off, what else do you need. I have done this in sub freezing weather, just keep that water on the warmer side.

I built a shower for our moose camp. The frame is a hand cart, has a 50 psi, 2.3gpm, 12v RV pump, batter, solar charger, and an RV propane water heater. Its not that portable, but will be welcome this fall, and will be like showering in your own bathroom...

Water supply will be the rain barrel or the pond.

My vote is for the Zodi stainless steel pump-up tank model. I have experimented with all kinds of variations as well.

2-3 good showers per tank, heats very quickly, no batteries to mess with, and the propane stove unit can double as your camp stove! I have had no issues with "O" rings yet. Nice unit which should give many years of service.

I will also vouch for the standing rack and rubber mat. I use a folding rack made of teak... works well and stores compactly. A rubber mat and cheap folding camp chair w/o arms works well too.

Happy showers!

The ZODI Hot Shower arrived the other day.

I gave it a test run tonight and that thing works really well!

It'll follow me to antelope camp very soon

Got one of those too. Ditched the burner since we can set it on the woodstove to heat up.

We just heat the water in 5gal stainless steel pails on the firepit, dump into another 5 gallon plastic pail, mix with some cold water for desired temperature. We use a submersible pump and a kitchen sink style spray nozzle. Works great. We use to set up shower with a wooden frame and some thin poly, now we have a small tent that was made for an outdoor potty that you buy instead...works good.

I had friends come out to moose camp and said they never shower on their hunting trips. But after they try it, they say they will be doing it as well.

Funniest part is watching the guys come out of the shower and making a mad dash to the wall tent, especially when its cold out. Sure is nice to wash the shmag off your bag after hunting - walking/hiking/riding on the quads/rhinos.

On our 7 day (leave sunday morning) Moose hunting trip, we take 1-2 showers, usually the Tuesday mid day after lunch and same on Friday. If its the 1-shower trips, its on Wednesday.

I spent 3 yrs living in a tent in NW WI, a soup pot and a tin cup worked just fine. I would hang a blanket up a few feet from the fire outside and stand between the blanket and the fire and bath, just keep turning in late January. I grew up bathing in a laundry tub in the wash shed in the summer and we moved the tub into the kitchen in the winter.

I did work for an asbestos removal company and built a number of portable decon shower set ups with propane powered continuous flow water heaters on hand trucks and collapsible shower units. A few of them would disappear during elk season and magically appear the weekend after closing.

Do you know the model of submersible pump you're using?

Thanks.

I have this one, it's got a temp strip on the side of it so you know when it's hot enough