Shower

Showering On The Playa

You'll never forget your first shower on the playa, it's a game changer.

Why this shower?

This shower is designed to assemble quickly and uses mostly ready-made parts. The dimensions are similar to a standard bathtub shower, and it feels like you are standing in a regular shower. The goal of this design is to be as simple as possible and to be constructed by somebody with little to no construction experience (like myself). When you are on the playa, assembling the shower should take you ~30 minutes, using two people and a rubber mallet, no special tools needed.

I have intentionally used as little wood as possible, as I believe steel and PVC is a more durable material that requires less custom work. Instead of building something complicated out of wood, I spent a majority of my time scouring the internet for already existing parts I can re-purpose. All you need for this build is a drill and a hand saw. After dozens of iterations, this is my current plan for the playa's best shower outside of an RV!

Building the shower

Part 1: The Frame


One common theme you will see across all BM showers is that they are raised. This is because you need to collect the grey water somehow, and the best way to do this is to take advantage of gravity. Alternatively, you could use pumps and keep your shower at ground level, but the pumps will eventually get clogged by a mixture of grey water and playa dust. So let's stick with gravity.

Without building something complicated, whats the easiest way to build a raised platform? Double rivet steel shelving. This is what you see in warehouses, and if its strong enough for warehouses its definitely strong enough to use as your shower. Putting together a shelf like this only requires a rubber mallet.

I used the website https://www.globalindustrial.com/ to buy my double rivet steel shelving parts since I wanted the dimensions to match my tub, and this was the only affordable place I could find mix-and-match pieces for sale.

Parts:



Part 2: Baseboard (Plywood)

Since you need a platform to put the tub on, buy the thickest plywood piece the hardware store sells (usually 1/2 or 3/4 of an inch) and cut a hole in it like shown. Have the plywood cut for you at the hardware store.

Plywood Dimensions:

  • 55'' x 41.5'' (half inch less than metal frame)

You will also need to cut a hole in the piece of wood for the drain, which we will discuss more in part 4.



Part 3: The tub

Another theme across all showers is that you need a way to collect the water. At home, bath tubs do this job, so let's find something as similar to a bath tub as possible.


Behold! The rubbermaid 100 gallon tank.


https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/tuff-stuff-products-heavy-duty-oval-stock-tank-110-gal

This beast costs $80.00 from a tractor supply store. Any similar tank will do.


I recommend you add rubber flooring (google: drainage pool tiles) and cut the pieces using EMT shears ($9) to fit. I recommend first cutting a piece of cardboard to make sure you have the shape right.


Part 4: Drainage and piping

The tub comes with a drain, although it is too far off the ground to be used for our purpose since a few gallons of water would collect in the gap between the floor and the drain....not good.

For this reason we will drill a hole in the ground and install a 2 inch PVC drain. I bought my PVC drain from Lowes.


You will need a very large drill bit (size: 2 inch). This is a very unusual size bit to own, and you will most likely need to buy it.

PVC Instructions:

  • The bottom of your 2 inch drain will need to deliver water to your 5 gallon bucket, as shown in the picture to the right.

  • There are many different PVC solutions that you can do to make this work. I recommend creating a slight slope so that the water easily flows downward.

  • Below I have what solution I used, but both times I built this shower I did the PVC piping slightly different. Play around with the PVC fittings at your hardware store until you have something you are satisfied with.

  • Cut, sand, and glue your PVC piping so that it is waterproof


Part 5: Shower curtain

Construct a PVC octagon and buy shower curtain clips like the ones shown. Attach the curtain after you glue the PVC pieces together.

I just estimated my pipe length and cut by hand.




Part 6: Shower bag holder


Construct a cage like shown below for the bag to clip onto.


Use very thick PVC! Sand and glue these pieces until you are confident it is very strong.


We used a pulley system to raise and lower the bag. You can carribiner the rope at whichever height you want.


Part 7: Final touches

Add a shampoo rack, rubber mats, and don't forget the coconut shampoo.


Use PVC end caps under the steel tower so the legs do not sink in the playa. Keep plenty of bleach handy and spray down the shower once or twice a day.


Cleaning the shower

1) Spray everything with bleach+water solution

2) Removing misc clothes people leave and put in your camp lost and found

3) If any camp members left their greywater in the bins, put this in 1 gallon jugs daily with some extra bleach and place in the shade. At the end of the week, ask your campmmates to bring some unclaimed water home with them.


For larger camps. I recommend creating a signup sheet for people to clean the shower.


Closing Thoughts

There are two main criticisms/issues, which are 1) size and 2) water "within the system".

The tubs are quite big, but we use these two showers for ~130 people and they are being used throughout the day and night, so I believe the space in your truck (likely a box rental trucks) is worth it. The two tubs stack within each other, and you can then put the plywood on top and stack other items in the truck on top of it. The shower items like PVC piping mostly fit inside the tub while the plywood is ontop.

The other part to watch out for, is the shower drain and floor tend to hold about a half gallon of water. This may confuse the first person who showers that day as to why they put in a gallon and maybe just got a half gallon out. This was not really an issue, in fact that water evaporates quite quickly and the shower was always very dry.

Once a day (or night) I collect clothes people left and put them in our lost and found, spray some bleach on the shower, and check if anyone forgot to collect their grey water. I just pour any forgotten grey water into gallon jugs and set them aside until the end of the week and ask our campmates to take a few extra gallons home. 7 days of usage for 130 people, probably 400+ showers and we only had around 10 gallons of greywater that was not accounted for, really not an issue for how much of a benefit it was.

Appendix/Notes


Drainage PVC Notes:

2 inch shower drains

Needs an angle so no water collects.

1x 60° elbow pvc

1x 45° elbow pvc

....so 105 degrees, 15 degree slant

Then need to go from 2 inch to 1 inch

2 inch to 1.5 inch coupler

1.5 to 1 1/4 inch

1 1/4 inch to 1 inch bushing (used as a coupler

3/4 inch flexible coupling

3/4 inch to 1/2 inch adaptor (2x quantity)

Thread into pvc valve 3/4 inch

Repeat 3/4 inch to 1/2 inch adaptor

1 ft 1 inch pvc


1ft pvc pipe + 1 1/2 inch pvc ball valve goes right in the middle of the pipe



Top part

30.75 inches - two long pieces that go to middle piece