Fitting outside shower

layton1837
layton1837 Forum Participant Posts: 109
edited March 2022 in Caravans #1

My daughter has just bought an 2007 Elddis Crusader caravan, and we are trying to fit an outside shower. There is provision on the water inlet for a shower as per the picture. But our problem  is the the the electrical connections. The caravan uses a submersible pump and there is an on board tank with its own pump. The water at present is controlled by micro switches in the taps. Can any one suggest a method of connecting the outside shower ,other than running a tap to energise the pump. 

I am OK with the water connections to feed the tank although Truma are taking the mickey by asking £35 plus £5 postage for the tee piece

Comments

  • Dave Nicholson
    Dave Nicholson Forum Participant Posts: 408
    edited March 2022 #2

    A few questions before I can hope to offer a solution;

    1) Is the submersible pump only used to fill the onboard tank?

    2) If so how is the submersible pump started?

    3)  If not do both pumps run at the same time when a tap is opened and the submersible pump is fitted?

    4) Do you want to control the outside shower from outside the caravan or is it practical to control it from inside the caravan?

  • layton1837
    layton1837 Forum Participant Posts: 109
    edited March 2022 #3

    The submersible pump is used to supply water directly to the taps and to fill the on board tank. There is a simple ball fix valve to stop the water entering the tank. There is a switch on the wall that controls either the external pump or the on board tank. We want  able to control the outside shower from the outside. Problem as I see it is that the external pump or the onboard pump are controlled by the taps. (Microswitches)  do you know of a method of fitting a micro switch in line with the shower. 

  • PeteCI
    PeteCI Forum Participant Posts: 66
    edited March 2022 #4

    Does your outside shower connection point have a valve to close it when there is no shower attached?

    If it has, you could fit an inline pressure switch in the internal feed pipe and use a shower head with a built in "tap".

    If it doesn't  you will have difficulty anyway because water will flow out whenever you turn on any tap!

  • Takethedogalong
    Takethedogalong Forum Participant Posts: 17,044 ✭✭✭
    10,000 Likes 1000 Comments Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited March 2022 #5

    Simple solution is to fit an extra long shower flexible pipe, with a trigger fitting on the end, and use it through the bathroom window outdoors. It’s what we did for years in our van. Shower off from beach outside, shower down dogs, etc….. 

  • Dave Nicholson
    Dave Nicholson Forum Participant Posts: 408
    edited March 2022 #6

    I seem to remember that we had a caravan where the custom outside shower head had an inbuilt switch that energised the pump when the trigger was depressed or the head was plugged in. Looking at the photo of the outlet it looks as though there are contacts on the fixed part of the ‘van that control the pump when the shower is plugged in, is this the case? If you’re not planning to use the custom shower head I can’t see how you’re able to get a seal between the outlet and the head. IfI’m missing the point ignore the above. The switch that energised the pump doedn’t have to be a micro switch and can be any switch wired in parallel with the existing micro switch circuits. Hope this helps.

Categories