Customer Reviews

Coleman Battery Powered Shower

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased the Coleman Battery Powered Shower for a camping trip with no shower facilities. We used a turkey fryer to heat water in a 5 gallon pot, then submersed the pump in the pot.It worked extremely well and had plenty of pressure. My husband, daughter, and I were able to take several showers with one set of batteries.

Our region is currently experiencing a very bad drought, and we have a hand-dug well that's probably 20-30 feet deep (our house is pre-Civil War). To conserve water, we've already been taking our clothes to a laundromat, using paper plates, and collecting shower water in a bucket to pour into the toilet tank. However, when the well's water level reached 2 feet, I felt that we needed to find even more methods for saving water, namely cutting back in the use of shower water. I started surfing the Net for a camp shower, possibly one of those ones that use 5-gallon bags.

After reading several reviews on how the 5-gallon bags tear at the seams after a few uses, I started looking for something else that would help. Hence, I came across the Coleman Battery-Powered Camp Shower on Amazon, and after doing a little research, I thought it was worth a try.

Well. I must say that I am amazed at the power of this little device. The water pressure in our home is not very strong, and we're quite used to it. But the power in this puppy equaled and sometimes surpassed the strength of our shower. It's so easy to use, too - just pop in 4 D-cell batteries, drop the little pump into a water source, and hit the red button to turn it on!

I was impressed at how people on Amazon heated up their water. I don't have a turkey fryer, a camp stove, or even a 5-gallon bucket. We get up very early in the morning (4:00am) to go to work and we need hot water for two people right then; we don't have time to wait for it to heat up. So we bought several 7-gallon blue containers at Wal-Mart (they're called Aqua-Tainers, look for them in the camping section) and filled them up with water from a nearby spring. The opening in the top of these containers is the perfect size for the pump on the camp shower. Then we bought a 2.5-gallon coffee urn, a long-necked funnel, and a heavy-duty plug-in timer.

At night, we use the camp shower to fill the coffee urn up with water from one of the blue containers. We pull out the pump and put it in the shower to drain, then position the funnel under the coffee urn and plug the urn into the timer. (We timed how long it takes to heat up the water - it takes 30 minutes.) At 3:30 in the morning, the timer turns on the coffee urn and the hot water pours into the funnel, back into the blue container with the cooler water. Whoever is the first one awake pulls the blue container over to the shower, swishes the container around to "mix" the hot and cold water into a palatable temperature, drops the pump into the container, and showers. How's that for an engineering fix-up? Since we have a bathtub/shower combo, we put the on/off button on the corner of the tub where it's easily reached with our fingers. The hose is long enough to drape over the existing shower head, and the force of the water is actually strong enough to spray out sideways, but I prefer to hold it in one hand.

Since we live in an area where we're at the mercy of low water levels, we are used to the 3-5 minute "Navy showers" - meaning we turn the water on to get wet, turn it off to lather up and shampoo, and turn it on to rinse. We've found that two "Navy showers" use about 3 gallons of water, more than enough for the 5-gallon containers, and the water stays comfortably warm all the way through.

This is a terrific little device, and a real steal for the cost. Don't bother with the solar bags. This baby delivers what it promises. I'm really glad I found it.

I used it for about 8 showers of 5gal each and the batteries were still working.It had good pressure for a battery operated device.I hooked it right up to a 5gal shower bag,it fit the opening and drew the water out.
With the black shower bag you can warm the water with the sun before use.
I would recomend it.

The pro's of this item is that it's compact, will fit anywhere really, even in a beach bag. The price is great for what you get too.

The Con's are that the water pressure is like a slow sink faucet.

I consider this a great buy!

FANTASTIC. PRESSURE IS GREAT. JUST HEAT UP SOME WATER ON A CAMP STOVE AND
YOU ARE SET. WE USE OURS FOR PRIMATIVE DEER CAMP. LOVE IT.

I have used one of these the last 3 times I have gone to Burning Man in Nevada. It works great, has good pressure and holds up well in extreme conditions. My entire camp of 15 people used this daily for a week. Pretty sure I only had to change the batteries one time.

I was impressed when I hooked the baby up. Good water pressure, easy off and on and just dropping it into a bucket of water doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out. Wish I'd thought to get one with the collapsible water bag.

This shower is a handy little unit. Works as advertised and my wife and daughter will really appreciate it during our primative site camping trips. By the way, I shopped around and saved quite a bit ordering from Amazon - mostly on the shipping charges.

The shower head has high/low water volume adjustment. When setting to high, the water strength is good. The battery compartment is not really water-proof. But you can easily wrap it with plastic bag to make it water-proof when using it in the field. The water input side (where the water pump sits) has thread to lock into Coleman's 5 gallon solar water bag. So, you don't need to hang the heavy 5 gallon solar water bag when taking shower in the camp site. If you don't have the 5 gallon water bag, you can just put the water pump in any buckle filled with water. With $15 (while it's on sale in Amazon), I am happy with this purchase and I am happy with the product performance.

I sent this to my wife over in the "desert". She's very happy with it.