As an adventure film director, I am used to live outside my comfort zone but if there is one thing i love, it’s being able to take a good hot shower after a long day being outside… so when I started to think about living the vanlife fullTime, I knew I didn’t want to look for public shower, etc.. I needed one in the van. And ti was going with my second main priority : feel like home. So I needed hot water of course.
THE SETUP
Thing is every centimeter is precious in a small van and you don’t use your shower more than few minutes everyday (or every two days… 😄). So I was sure it would have been a waste of space if I dedicated a corner just for that. I also thought it could be great to be able to use it outside to wash myself or anything else.
Combining all those constraints, I decided to put my water sink close to the side door of the van and use a dual tap / shower head. If was also quite cheap so that was perfect!
But in case of real emergency situation where I can not take a shower outside (being in a city, or too cold to go outside), I imagine an inside solution : I setup my flooring 10cm above the ground level of the van, and I hide a shower tank in the middle ! I just have to setup a water curtain around to not flood everything…
to be honest : I didn’t try this yet 😄
THE BUILD
To have a shower like in your home, I have a 170l water tank for clean water. It gives me few days of autonomy and I don’t have to be really careful saving water when cleaning the dishes. There is a I have a fiama water pomp linked to a expansion tank so it gives really clean and continuous water flow. Then there is a Truma B10 boiler which has two positions for heating water : 50 or 70°. It works on gas (propane in my case) and heat up water in around 30 minutes. Problem is there no indicator to say water is hot. Quite stupid. Anyway, The duration is then depending of the water pressure you have, but in my case I have enough time to take a big shower (5-7 minutes) or two short shower by taking care.
I am still missing an important part to finish the build actually : the dirty water tank. It will go under the van but I didn’t had time to set it up. So far, I am using a 30L jerrican to collect the water from the sink.
THE CHERRY ON THE CAKE
At last but not least, my friend Issia found on amazon this suction thing to hold the head shower on the van. And it is just awesome!!! Super easy to install / remove by turning a wheel to get/remove the suction effect. You can adjust the orientation (more up or down) and once it’s fixed, it will not fall down : one day I forgot to remove it and drove on the highway with it. It’s still there!! Haha
GENERAL ADVICE
The water setup was for me the most difficult part to do. I got some leaks cause I didn’t screw tight enough some joints. I have trouble to find the good tanks to fit under the car.
Time1 weekDifficultiesVery difficult : lots of leaks
