A few weekends ago, I went to the Maker Faire in San Mateo. As I stared in wonder at things like a life size mousetrap or a puppy mover monorail, I thought about ingenuity and what drives people to envision something, and decide to make it themselves.
My parents are makers, but of the practical kind. They see something they want, and decide to build it themselves in order to save money. Papa built our house in New Hampshire almost entirely by himself, with only help from my mother and occasionally some friends. He drew up the plans for the house based on plans in a book. He did the wiring and plumbing. If there was something he didn't know how to do, he would ask someone or get a book from the library.
The outdoor solar shower is a great example of Papa's inner maker. In the second summer we spent in New Hampshire, in 1982, the basement was not yet done, which means the house had no bathroom or shower. There was a water pump that sat in the dirt beneath the house to pump water from the well. We had a gas hot water heater for the kitchen sink and a shower stall that stood outside next to the house. This shower worked perfectly well, but Papa wanted to save money on propane by harnessing the power of the sun to heat our water.
There were many trees that needed to be cleared from the property, so when Papa cut down trees to build a bigger parking area at the top of the driveway, he kept some of the straight ones intact instead of cutting them up for firewood. He placed four logs upright in the ground in a shower sized square, and built a platform on the bottom. He then built a platform on the top, upon which he placed a 50-gallon drum that was painted black. A hose from the house filled the barrel with water. There was a spout that came out of the drum and it had holes in it to resemble a shower head. The log posts were wrapped in black plastic for warmth and privacy. The idea was that the sun would heat the water in the drum, and gravity would provide the necessary pressure to make it a shower. This was to be a luxurious outdoor shower experience.
But summertime in New Hampshire is fickle. It rarely gets above 80 degrees. Our property sloped to the North, so even in the southern corner, the forest made a full day of sun non-existent. When I used the shower, I tried very hard to like it. The lukewarm water dripped on my head, and the lack of pressure made rinsing shampoo from my hair difficult. I looked up and could see the trees, but I could also see the dirt of the driveway through the cracks in the platform. The wood was not treated, so slivers felt imminent. But this was grand, this was living off the land!
I longed for a ceramic tub with a high pressure shower. In a room with a toilet.
I used the solar shower a couple of times. I tried to stay at my friend Erika's house often so I could bathe there. Soon my parents switched back to the outdoor metal shower stall with its water pressure and hot water from the propane tank. Some things in life are worth paying for, and I believe water pressure, hot water, a shower stall and a septic system are well worth the money.
Wow! That system was quite sadly under-engineered. A 50-gallon tank painted black by itself is definitely inadequate. Going by this site (http://www.solardev.com/solar-dhw-adding.php) you needed at least 50 square feet of collector surface area to get sufficient energy. Mirrors to focus energy on that tank or solar thermal panels, which pipe water between insulating glass and heat-absorbing surfaces, would have done it.
After that, a water pump's electricity requirement, whether from wind or grid, would have been modest. We measured a small one with a Kill-a-watt the other day, and its 65 watt/1.24 amp draw was light compared to the 1400 watt/12.5 amp hairdryers we had on hand. I don't know what its capacity was, but from what I read, that solar shower apparently omitted any pump at all.
Too bad that a good idea wasn't properly executed. I have to admire the spirit, though.
Posted by: Daniel | June 11, 2009 at 11:54 PM