Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Solar Shower


Mum and Dad brought a whole host of stuff with them for us. For which we are eternally grateful and sorry they were short on space for clothing. We had many treats including chocolate, crisps and feta cheese - mmmmmmm. They also brought out a whole bunch of Christmas presents for us from various friends and family. Most of these we have hidden away and will save till the day, so we can try to feel like it is actually Christmas. However we had orders from my brother and his wife to open a couple of theirs to get good use of them. The first present was a small travel pillow which makes sleeping so much more comfy than the foam stuffed lumpy pillow we had previously. The second present was an ingenious bit of thinking on Rich or Clare's part - a solar shower.

Its a bit black bag with a nozzle on the end. You leave it out in the sun to heat then at the end of the day enjoy a hot shower. Well my first attempt was not successful. I left it out all day but worried it would get too hot so placed it where I knew it would go in to the shade. Turns out Buea was not very sunny that day so it gained little heat. i thought I would not waste the water and shower with it any way. Turns out 20L of water is quite heavy and I struggled to hang it up and neglected to use the string supplied. This resulted in dropping the shower a couple of times and it falling past other nails in the wall tearing holes in it - oops. So after some super glue and sleek (really sticky nursing tape) I fixed it.

Yesterday I had my second attempt. According to the instructions after 3 hours at 21 degrees the water gets pretty hot. So I put the bag out to warm at lunch time. However we must remember what we learn from frozen oven chips that it always takes twice as long to cook as the packet says.

The water was warm but not HOT. Next time I will leave it out all day. But the puncture repair worked and I did not fill it as much so my feeble arms could hang the bag. Its a great invention just takes a little practice to gets its full potential but I did enjoy my warm shower last night. So Thank you Rich and Clare we are very grateful.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Well I hope you can get the water hot enough, otherwise I suppose you could use it to water the garden.

Hev said...

I am sure if I leave it out all day it will be nice and hot! Just hope I do not end up getting it too hot and scalding myself.