Doighouse Series - Shower for the Earthship Build

With so many people scheduled to come and help with the construction of the Earthship, as part of the Doighouse Build, we will need a proper shower. Scratch that! Even if none of the interested helpers show up, just being out here on the land, doing preliminary preparation work, I want to have a decent shower at the end of the day. So no matter what, some shower facility is called for. And just because it is supposed to be a temporary installation, doesn’t mean it can’t be well made. So let me introduce the Doig-shower Deluxe:

No Need for a Shower Curtain

I believe most people will agree, the worst part of showers in general is the curtain. It doesn’t do a great job at containing the water to the shower basin, even in indoor settings. In a windy outdoor one, however, it would be virtually useless at maintaining the desired privacy. Not to mention the elephant in the shower-room: the mold growing almost instantly between its folds!!! So what’s the most efficient and elegant solution? That’s right: the spiral wall!

By simply walking behind a planked wall, shaped like a spiral, one doesn’t need to worry about the sudden exposure a gust of wind can cause. Depending on how it’s built, one may even look over the planks comfortably, while having all the privacy a shower requires. Otherwise, if the planks are high enough, a pair of feet will easily show whether the facility is occupied. In our design both of these factors have been kept on the conservative side, creating a well shielded, yet spacious shower room. The material we used were twelve metal fence-posts, a coil of black PVC tubing, and a bunch of cut-offs from the saw mill.

Location, Location

The most perfect place for the shower, it has been decided, would be just behind the stack of logs, in the middle of the garden. Since the ground is very porous sand, a simple rock-pit will take the water deep enough. The white IBC (International Beverage Container) provides a cubic meter or 1000 liters (264 gallons) of water before it has to be refilled. On top of the logs, a dark barrel of 200 liters (53 gallons) will be heated in the sun, gravity-feeding into the shower head. A simple hand-pump is going to transfer the water from the IBC to the barrel when the water level is too low.

This amazing plan had to be put in place by first sawing off a generous piece of the log on top of the stack, and rolling it over to make space for the black tank. Installing a garden-hose faucet into its lower edge got us to connect it to the shower head. But how do we know when the barrel is empty? We needed a gauge: Using a straight branch from the local bush called Ocean Spray (Holodiscus discolor), a.k.a. Ironwood by the local natives, who used it to make arrows, we tied it to a board on top of an empty plastic container. This would stick out through a hole in the lid, and thus indicate the water level.

Theory and Practice

Coming up with such an ingenious design didn’t take long. Putting it in practice, we estimated would require a day (therefor two days, just to give it a generous buffer). The fact is, it’s been over a week since we started, and still there are pieces to be hooked up, such as the hand-pump, which is simply waiting for a proper fitting. Our saving grace is a number of other, more important and immediately urgent jobs. On the other hand, I’ve taken showers here a bunch of times already, and each evening the water is a bit less cool! Like many other projects, this shower may also be a work in progress. Already there are talks of building a thermo-syphon based solar panel to heat the water in the barrel more efficiently. And certainly, all these side-projects are among the many things we are likely to engage in before, during, or even after the Earthship build. For now, however, we have a functional shower, offering us comfortable refreshment after a day’s work.