Does anyone have any experience with the hot water systems for showers advertised in Cabela's?There is the Hotman and the Hot Tap shower systems. I am desperately trying to solve the hot shower problem mainly for moral purposes. Thanks.

-- James (b@b.com), March 27, 1999

Answers

James, I solved my hot water problem by getting a "heat on demand" propane water heater installed in my house. Doesn't need any electricity and I really love it. The other half of the world is more conserned about energy than the US is so they're quite common elswhere in the world. The unit is pretty spendy, about $650 for the size I got but I just got my first electric bill after switching the range, dryer, and water heater to propane and it's half of what it was last month! The only drawback is a slight decrease in hot water pressure. I know this isn't practical for most people (my dad paid for half) but if you can afford it, it's a wonderful product. Mine's an Aqua Star...don't know if there's any more brands out there.

Kimbo WA

-- Kimbo WA (aliveandwell@WA.com), March 27, 1999.

There is a site and business that sells wood fired hot water heaters. The name of the business is HotPro http://www.hotpro.com.

As far as I understood from talking to one of the managers, they have been in business long before the Y2K issue was an "issue" for consumers and they have very sophisticated equipment. A little pricey, but seeing as how you'll save WADS on the hot water bills/electricity in the long run (if you have land and wood), it's great. We are budgeting for a system now, but have no personal experience with it yet.

Mr. K
***looks forward to hot showers***

-- Mr. Kennedy (hot@water.shower), March 27, 1999.

Don't know what Cabela's is, but I bought solar showers, $14.20 each from Real Goods. Minimalist thinking I guess, but I have other choices for allocating the bigger bucks.

It contains 5 gallons and takes three hours to heat it up in the sun. Seems very durable. Says it contains enough to take 3 or 4 hot showers but who knows? One each would be good enough. I can also use this for washing dishes.

"I am desperately trying to solve the hot shower problem mainly for moral purposes"

Exactly! Morale would be horrible without it. As long as I can take a warm shower and wash my hair however primitively, life will be that much better.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), March 27, 1999.

In most areas, you don't need to use precious fuel to warm water for a shower, if you don't mind waiting a little while for it. Here's a method currently in use at the spark's domicile - running as an experiment, but it IS running...

In the basement are the water tanks. A small 12v pump in one of them lifts water up one-and-a-half stories to the south-facing roof, where it goes into one side of a 9 gallon black plastic tank positioned on the roof, surrounded by aluminum reflectors, well out of any shade. On the other side of the tank is a 12v solenoid valve, with the control cable and a large (2" diameter) pipe running into a low-flow shower head in the makeshift shower stall in the basement.

Operation is simple - turn on the pump in the A.M. to fill up the tank. Let sit until about 2:00 P.M. Take hot/warm shower (depending on sunshine) anytime between 2 and 4 P.M. in the winter by flipping solenoid 'on'. By judicious use, we can get 4 "sorta-showers" or two "full-on Y2K luxury showers" from a tankful.

BTW, with water at a premium, we intend to use the shower greywater for gardening purposes, and to showere only a few days a week. If our ancestors could get by with it, or worse, so can we...

-- sparks (wireless@home.com), March 27, 1999.

From Fran experience: it's not the bathing that's so much of a problem (you can do that with Wet Wipes or a washcloth aimed at the important bits), it's washing your hair. Very, very unpleasant to wash hair in cold water. I'm not so sure about the dry shampoos but I guess they must be better than cold-water washing. After washing hair twice in cold water (oh, poor me! TWICE!), I ordered two solar showers from Real Goods too. Then there's always a solar hot water heating system. . .

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), March 27, 1999.

Take it from one who knows - dry powder shampoos are simply awful.You end up looking as though you've been covered in white ash & the only way to get rid of it completely is to WASH your hair.

If conditioner is something you use & you run short,beware of trying to concoct an egg based conditioner...something that is recommended in all those natural cosmetic books.There is every likelyhood that you will end up with your head covered in scrambled egg if you use warm or hot water to rinse it off!

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), March 28, 1999.