Having some time to think, set about putting together a portable shower with some form of heating after last year’s straight connection to the stand pipe, which was bl**dy cold.
The shower head is a hanging basket watering pole with adjustable spray setting from Robert Dyas (£10).
The "heater" is a Lorry inner tube - taking a lead from the "solar" showers which are basically black bags which absorb the suns heat. The biggest challenge was to secure the connections into the tube without leaking. I used ½ bsp cold water tank unions, it needed a patch of 3 x3 inch sticking around it with impact adhesive and binding around the tube circumference with gaffer tape to stop the pressure expanding the tube too much and causing a leak. These unions are the same size as Hozelock connectors so once secured standard hose’s connect directly. The pump is a small pump that cost about £5 ages ago to pump out a soak away that didn’t. This is driven by a rechargeable cordless drill.
All in it cost about £30 excluding the pump and drill.
The idea is that it will take the chill off rather than steaming hot, will either fill it and let it heat up in the sun and pump or let it heat and then feed in the cold water and pump so the temperature drop is gradual but longer lasting. Need to do some more tests but the outer tube temp got to 34 deg C on a sunny / cloudy day of about 20 deg C and the water temp got to 23 deg after a couple of hours. So banking on a sunny weekend in France, it should work OK.
