A hot tub for camping.

Craig · #1 (**permalink**) 10-20-2003, 11:08 PM

For those of you into camping, I just found out how to make a hot tub for camping. Who knows this might be old news but I'll explain it for those of you who don't know anyway. Get a 12 volt bilge pump for a boat (very inexpensive from an autoparts or marine store), a length of hose and some copper pipe. Dig a hole as deep as you want your hot tub, line it with a waterproof tarp (I've even seen someone put hay down underneath the tarp for comfort. Fill the hole with water. Take your copper pipe and coil it around your camp fire a couple of times. Attach two seperate hoses to both ends of the copper pipe (remember to run the pipe far enough away from the fire so the hose doesn't melt) and run the hoses into the water filled hole. Attach the bilge pump to one end of the hose. Power the bilge pump from your vehicle battery. It'll pump the water from the tub, around the fire heating it up and back into the tub. Now all you need is a whole lot of beer.

Tug-n-pull · #2 (**permalink**) 10-20-2003, 11:15 PM

Rather get a room with a nice hot tub in it! Momma Tug was in desert storm and sllep in a tent for moinths so we just do not camp any more! Dont mind roughing it up until time to get clean and rest then it is off to the nicest hotel motel we can find for the night. Besides I am to old and fat to be out digging holes! hehehe but is does sound fun tug

Mxpx182lit · #3 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 12:22 AM

i want to try this, but i have a added suggestion. Make the hole wider then deep, then when done with using it, remove the tarp so what you have is a dirt hole full of water, then get a stick, with the stick stir it up into gooey mud, then, hit it a few times with your jeep!

Snitty · #4 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 01:04 AM

you can also make a water heating system with your jeep... it is quite simple, but likely not worth it just for the "luxuries of roughing it"

Inspector-Gadget · #5 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 01:10 AM

Gadget reads starting post and ponders the following:

The average 7'x7' hot tub holds 300 gallons of water.

Hot tub water temp is approximately 100 degrees.

Consider the fact that the earth is an infinitely large heat sink.

Consider also that the campfire pipe loop water heating method will be roughly 0.00021 percent efficient.

Gadget grabs abacus and slides beads back and forth.

clickety, clickety, click, clickety, click...click

Yep....it is just as Gadget thought: One campground hot tub session will require the burning of every tree presently standing in the state of New Hampshire.

Jokingly yours,

Gadget

PS: I can't wait to see the look on Ranger Doug's face when he lays eyes on THIS!

Mxpx182lit · #6 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 01:15 AM

snitty, how could i heat water with my jeep? it would be helpful in cooking ramen noodles on teh trail, but i guess i could always tape a potato to the block for a while!

Snitty · #7 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 02:34 AM

it is quite simple.. but in my opinion.. not worth the time to do the mod... look up "onboard shower" in a search engine to find the details

Craig · #8 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 08:45 AM

I had some friends do it this summer. If you want your tub to heat up faster, then just put more coils around the fire. It heats up in no time at all...actually gets too hot, we had to shut the pump off for a while. We also used it as a warm shower. Pumped water directly out of the lake, around the fire and out a shower head mounted on a wooden pole...worked great.

LauraBoston · #9 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 09:15 AM

I canoe the Saco River every year (from Fryeburg, ME to Brownfield, ME about 16 miles) this would be the best thing to hit the river! I'm gonna start planning now!

BakedAlaskan · #10 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 09:37 AM

Gadget Gadget,....Some of the best engineering comes from,
"Hold my beer and watch this!!!"

Now add a anti-scald valve and another pump with cold water supply and it would always be the perfect temp.

Honestly digging the hole is the stopping point for me. I only dig when the jeep is stuck and it is LAAAAAAST thing I have left to try.

judge09 · #11 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 10:35 AM

forget camping I am going to try this in my backyard :)

Inspector-Gadget · #12 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 10:58 AM

Laughing @ BakedAlaskan's post.

Keith, I am familiar with "Budweiser" engineering. The first post just formed a mental image that had me in tears. Actually, there is no reason the campfire hot tub idea wouldn't work. The idea just struck me as funny.

Boating stores sell a "solar shower." It is a large black plastic bag with a short hose and shower nozzle. You fill the bag with water and hang it in the sun from a mast or whatever. The sun heats the bag of water. If you have ever left a garden hose, shut off at the nozzle, on a blacktopped driveway during the summer, you have experienced how quickly the water in the hose heats up.

But to return to Craig's idea, why dig a hole in the ground? Assuming one's Jeep has good door and tailgate seals, why not just fill the Jeep tub with the heated water? A sea-jay hot tub for four?

This would work to clean and relax people. When finished tubbing, pulling a floor plug would let the water drain away. Voila!!! A really, really clean Jeep interior!!! You can deal with the Jeep-tub ring after arriving home.

Consider too, that if one coiled copper tubing around the Jeep exhaust manifold or header pipes and pumped water through the tubing, you could have one heck of a heat exchanger.

The possibilities are endless!

Gadget

PS: Laura, check out this link for a solar shower suitable for packing along on a canoe trip:

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...&productId=626

Snitty · #13 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 01:33 PM

here is an article for making a heat exchanger for clean water... if you seal it right, it will leave the water coming out as clean as it was going in...

http://www.yankeetoys.org/black900rr/shower/Shower.html

LauraBoston · #14 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 01:58 PM

Inspector-Gadget, Those are defintally good for the Saco...I have a beauitful river to bathe in though, also I am only on the river for 2 days, Sat. and Sun., well 1/2 a day on Sunday.

They might be good for the girly girls that come, I will foward that link to some of my friends, they will like that.

www.canoesaco.com <---This is the website for what we do, how we do it and some pics. If you have never been down the Saco, I suggest you do it! If you like beer, alcohol, liquor, camping, poopin in the woods, canoes, just sitting there...it is the best!

Craig · #15 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 07:55 PM

My friends got lazy this summer too and went out and bought a large kiddy pool for about $100. Canadian and just used that instead. I think the easiest thing to do is use someone's truck bed if anyone has a truck up camping with you. Just seal it up with some poly or a large tarp.

Craig · #16 (**permalink**) 10-21-2003, 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inspector-Gadget

But to return to Craig's idea, why dig a hole in the ground? Assuming one's Jeep has good door and tailgate seals, why not just fill the Jeep tub with the heated water? A sea-jay hot tub for four?

This would work to clean and relax people. When finished tubbing, pulling a floor plug would let the water drain away. Voila!!! A really, really clean Jeep interior!!! You can deal with the Jeep-tub ring after arriving home.

Consider too, that if one coiled copper tubing around the Jeep exhaust manifold or header pipes and pumped water through the tubing, you could have one heck of a heat exchanger.

The possibilities are endless.

I guess if you used this idea, you could fill your washer fluid bottle with beer and run it inside the jeep for a tap. You wouldn't have to get up for a beer!

Inspector-Gadget · #17 (**permalink**) 10-22-2003, 01:10 AM

Snitty: Thanks for the link to the water exchanger-heater website. That is a very creative and innovative idea. If I were to build it, however, I would not construct the inner water piping that way. That design is unnecessarily labor intensive, uses too many soldered joints, each of which is a potential leak, has too many flow restricting 180-degree turns, and it cannot easily be drained.

Instead, I would first ask Baked Alaskan to hold my beer, then I would wind flexible copper tubing around a mandrel to form closely spaced coils -- like a coil spring made of copper tubing. That would provide a single continuous pipe, free of flow restricting 180 degree turns, with only one joint to be made at each of the end caps.

(Keep in mind that fresh water loop of the exchanger will have to be drained during cold weather. Other than by applying compressed air or suction, I cannot see how those rectangular fresh water loops can be completely gravity drained.)

Then I would take back my beer, congratulate myself on a job well done, and drink my brewski.

LauraBoston: Thanks for the link to your Saco River-canoe trip web site. I just spent about 20 minutes going through every page, story and picture. A very pleasant and informative read, all laid out in a logical and easily navigated way.

A great read and a great job!!!

Gadget

Snitty · #18 (**permalink**) 10-22-2003, 04:18 AM

well.. i don't drink alcohol... but I agree with you... I would use the coil method myself... i have seen some writeups where they did use the coil... you can get much more exhange through it and it would flow much better.. it would be easy to fill the copper with sand, and coil it around a broomstick or something of slightly larger diameter... i've thought about it... but if i did it.. it would be more for showing off than it would be for practicality