Outdoor shower project

First off these are not my pictures, I jacked them from some article I was reading several years ago, so the idea would not be lost in the rest of the clutter in my head I would credit the pics but no clue who deserves the credit

So recently obtained the bulk container that is tall enough to work for this project and I am going to retire the old Cabin Voglezang box stove and replace it with a much more efficient woodstove and I have a fair amount of copper tubing. So this should be a pretty straight forward easy project to put together.

WHY??? I get dirty and muddy A LOT and MRS T5R Yells at me A LOT making my way to the inside shower Hosing off at the hydrant has been the order of the day forever and well it can be either a scalding or freezing experience depending on the time of year. And even with a good hose off enough mud and sand remain on person that comes off in the shower and eventually plugs the S up and makes one more thing for me to maintain. Can also kill two birds with one stone with this project, I have room in my outhouse to put the box stove in it, thus heating it over the winter. I strongly dislike dropping deuces and taking a leaks inside my home. Most animals don't doing potty business in their dens anyway its a personal fetish. Just put the shower stall beside the outhouse and heat the water with the wood stove inside the outhouse.

Currently the outhouse has a 6 gallon electric water heater and I just use a old honeywell electric space heater when its cold. The outhouse is not a old school stink shack. It is a 8x8x8H tin sided and roofed and insulated structure that sits on top of a concrete box with a straight drop hole with a modern flushing toilet and bum gun over the hole and a 4" overflow pipe that takes the honey to the aerated septic tank. And yes has a sink and mirror as well.... Its a bathroom like any other, minus a shower, just not in my house You say outhouse and folks instantly conjure a stinking little shack over a hole in the ground or one those nasty ass port a potties.

When I saw this I thought at the time it would be a nice addition to the outhouse and would get rid of the need for the water heater and space heater. And I would get yelled at a whole lot less for walking dirty through the Cabin to the shower!

Now that I have all of the parts for it, I just need to find the time to put it all together with all of the other projects going on here this year.

Another little way to spend less money as well. I have already effectively retired and my income is about 1/3rd of what it was between what I still sell and my allowance from saved and invested money. MRS T5R is going to retire at the end of December and between her pension and investment income. So our income without dipping into principle is considerably lower now and will be even less January 1st. So we are looking at every angle to spend less but maintain the same comforts and needs. This inflation is going to make that less than ideal. The muddy waters these days in my crystal ball tells me that we are going to hit a HARD Recession in the very near future that has a very real chance of going full depression that will make the 1930s look like a cake walk. And as a bonus I don't see the inflation subsiding with the a recession/depression but rather slowing down a little but still going up in a strong way. For the first time in my lifetime there is actually a very real chance of a complete economic melt down not only Nationally but globally. Way too many bubbles that have been artificially created over the last two years and it is looking like they are all going to start popping Soon and one right after another causing a cascade failure in the economy, in the supply chain that is already screwed, and the potential for the most basic things being in very short supply with very high demand........ In other words the reality of the situation is going to catch up with smoke and mirror illusions.

So we are doing everything we possibly can to liquidate a good % of investments into things of real tangible value, fortunately most of that was done prior to the stock market taking a nose dive. I operate on the Bacon/Steak/Land/Bullet standard and right now $1 won't buy you very much Bacon! I fully intend to be the guy with a lot of bacon in the freezer and on the hoof I kind of at this point am regretting leaving 20% of my money invested in markets.... It is taking a real beating! I play enough in the markets to know what is happening right now and why. The markets are adjusting for what they are predicting to come in the next 6 month to a year. Oil and Energy Execs are being unusually open about the future of energy and oil and flat out saying the prices will not be coming down soon if they ever do. A couple of our local gas station chains have reprogrammed their pumps to move the price per gallon up to $10 per gallon, does that mean gas is going to $10 per gallon? Nope. But it is a indicator that they are preparing for it to go there.

Solar system is the big one for this year my mish mash of little independent systems just ain't cutting it. Still good for providing basic electric to individual barns that only require lighting and well pumping but fall Wayyyyyyyyyy short of replacing the grid electric for the main areas and housing. I have already got rid of some of the big power hogs like the walk in freezer and fridges and switched the plug in welder to a generator welder. Dropping those things alone dropped the average Electric bill from $1800 per month down to $780 and the Monthly KW usage down to 6,035. In process of changing all of the electric heating and cooling to Heat pumps, all of the lighting to LED and the cooking ranges and hot water heaters from electric to propane. That should considerably reduce the KW usage even further. My Original solar plan was for continuing to power the power hogs. Then it dawned on me "HEY DUMB ASS YOU ARE RETIRING AND JUST DO NOT NEED A 1900cuft walk in freezer and a pair of 600cuft walk in fridges!!!!" Made sense when I had large numbers of hanging sides of beef and hog, and kept 20000 pounds of processed boxed meat at all times. I have everything I am going to keep running with in 6 very energy efficient 35cuft chest freezers and 4 24cuft refrigerators. So selling that one big aluminum skinned monster freezer and pair of big box fridges was a very good choice to make. Kind of sad watching them get winched up on the tilt deck trailers and leave, but not missing the electric bills they used to make

So anyway going a bit overkill probably on killing anything that uses electric that can be converted to propane, wood fired or solar. I probably chose the worst time possible to retire and work for myself instead of producing and selling to everyone else. I had not really intended to retire until after the 2022 show and market season. Then I started looking at the 20% I buy in that I can't produce and it is totally hit and miss as to whether I will get it if I order it, and how much it going to cost me to get it! Then the fuel prices, the trucks that pull the trailers are not great on fuel but not horrible when the cost goes from $70 to pulling out and returning to $150+ that is a game killer. My primary customer base for the food trailers are the average middle class blue collar folks that are debating on whether to pay gas to get to work, pay utilities or buy groceries. My prices before all of this inflation were more than fair and I did a very good business. That all changed and changed fast, I would have to double my prices to earn less than I earned a year ago....... and if I continued to do the small town set ups I would be running at a loss. I would also have to keep raising my prices because well the inflation and fuel just keeps going up.,, pushing my customer base farther away with every price increase. Guess I should have catered to the leftist foodie freaks that doing their spending with trust funds and our tax dollars, they seem to be flush with cash LOL to late for that now, pretty sure I have pissed every one of them off in a 100 mile radius LOL probably was not in my best interest to say things like "I am sorry but I notice you are Bernie supporter, please go someplace else because you are to stupid to be my customer." Ahh well no regrets at all in that! Besides their self cleansing body stench was not very appealing to the valued customers in line.

 

I prefer the modern replacement for the cast iron heat exchanger that was the back of the firebox. Use fireclay and embed the copper tubing in it and put in the side of the stove replacing the fire brick. That seems to keep using the heat of the coals better and does not cool your chimney gasses.

I agree on all that you are doing and saying. When it takes 1/30 th of you and your wife's social security check to eat out, 1/20 th to fill the gas tank in the truck, and 1/2 to buy a tank of oil, something has to change and I have no influence on the rest of the world..

 

I think you can safely say October of this year is when things are going to start becoming FFA. (Free for all) There should be a very short window where your money will buy you a lot as people who are late to the party start realizing just how screwed they are and start selling everything they have for some quick cash. When this happens the rich will start buying everything for pennies on the dollar. Poor peoples cries for free food and money will NOT get them any results as the government pulls up stake and hands the reigns to anyone who will take it. It will be too late but entitled people will start to justify stealing to feed them selves and families. This is starting to happen slowly now but I think once October/November hits it will be full Mad Max. I am saving some of my cash reserves for this time so I can get a few things cheap.

 

You are not wrong! An example I like to use is the Early spring 2009 ice storm we had here. It was an exceptionally bad one and power was completely out for large areas for 2 days-3 weeks. People bought MASSIVE numbers of portable generators and then discovered the gas stations did not have anymore power than residences did and could not power the fuel pumps to sell fuel. Semi Tankers were brought in to fuel the Linemen trucks, first responder, snowplow/salt shakers and emergency services generators. A lot of poorly constructed buildings with flat roofs were collapsing under the weight of 3"-6" of solid ice clinging to them. When it was all over and the ice gone and everything back to normal there were thousands of never used generators for sale dirt cheap on the regional craigslist. I like Generacs so I sorted and found four new in the box never fueled 8Krunning/10Ksurge that I picked up for $175-$300 per (Retail at the time was $1,000) 2 of them ended up going on the food trailers, One is on and off a trailer for remote power around the farm and the fourth is still in the box on a pallet in a barn. I seem to be able to keep Generacs running for ever, most used one has 2970 running hours on it. I have found that about every 1100-1200 hours they need new valve rods and rockers and the compression is starting to get weak and new rings are in order to fix that, basically a mini rebuild at 1200 hours of running that on a bad day takes about 3 hours from start to finish. Draw back to them is they are loud and not very fuel friendly. Picked up a 4K Honda quiet run at the same time for $600 Mounted it on the Frozen Meat freezer market trailer in 2012 and ran it myself from 2012 to 2018 and abused it pretty badly but did keep up with the oil and plug changes. Sold that trailer/generator and 4 freezers as a package mid 2018 to another meat broker and the Honda was still running strong with 6800 running hours on it.

Anyway yeah people crisis buy a lot of crap with no immediate or foresight and then regret sell it for cheap in new or like new condition for a fraction of what they paid for it. Been a whole lot of crisis buying over the last two years. This is going to sound really bad but I have loaded up on second hand toilet paper, paper towels, rubbing alcohol, Iodine and peroxide CHEAP from regret buyers selling off on Craiglist over the last 6-8 Months. Finally convinced MRS T5R that 20 cases of charmin is more than enough! Cases of toilet paper and paper towels TAKE UP A LOT OF SPACE!!! If we buy any more cheap toilet paper and paper towels we are going to have to buy a 20' container just fer butt wipe and spill wiper storage!!! Can't argue that $10-$15 per case is not a good deal, just don't have the space that it requires to store massive amounts of it. Nudged her to focus on something else, so now she is on a gun and bullet buying mission again I don't have a gun on the property that pushed 9MM but had to go to the FFL to pick up 8 cases of some breed on 9mm because she got it cheap. Now she is shopping 9mm bullet pushers. What we really need are cheap .45LC and can always use more .300wm and 7.62x51 NATO or .308s. Then there is the mystery of how a case or two of 5.56 or .223s end up in the cart every time we go to Rural King??? Like we don't have enough Galils and AR-15s to arm a platoon and fight a constant fire weeks long battle!!! LOL I am not complaining I always dreamed of a wife that was into guns and being as prepared for anything as possible. Was not prepared for the Polar shift in MRs T5R that Occurred in the early days of Covid from "Do we really need that?" in to MRs DOOMSDAY PREPPER LOL. Never thought I would be the one saying "Dear do we really NEED THAT??? or Don't ya think we have about enough of this or that???"

The Crisis buyers/Regret Sellers have been my best friend of late!

 

LOL yeah my GF has about 50 cases of the best toilet paper taking up way too much space. Its almost like they are afraid to use leaves, sand, or towels...

She was right on board when I said we need to start getting ready and take this all seriously 10 years ago. Most of the ammo is in the 100s, some in the 1000s, but I would like it to all be in the 1000s. Trying to get all the calibers covered at this point and at least 2 or more guns to go with each. So far
9mm
45
45colt
22lr
6.5 creedmore
17hmr
12ga, 20ga, 10ga
.308
5.56 and .223
7.62
.320

 

Y2K on Steroids. Lets hope it ends the same way. Somehow I doubt it.

 

What a great idea. Love the use of the containers to create a shower.

 

Reminds me I need to get my solar shower put together.

 

I bought one of those propane powered , battery ignition, instant hot water heaters a few months back. Got it for 80 bucks off Craigslist,, brand new ,, never hooked up.
I built a tiny home for girl a few years back and she had me put a smaller one of those in ,, and I was really impressed with how well it worked. But of course you need water pressure for them to work,, but like MM said ,, I do like that shower stall idea .