Do-it-yourself summer shower in the country with heating

A person who comes to the dacha to work in the garden or just relax should be able to swim. An outdoor shower installed in the garden is best suited for this. However, the weather cannot always please you with warm days, and the water simply does not have time to warm up during the day. The solution to the problem will be a heated outdoor shower for summer cottages, which allows you to take water procedures in any weather.

Mobile shower – the simplest arrangement of country comfort

With a very rare visit to the dacha, it makes no sense to build a stationary bathing building. In this situation, a mobile shower bought in a store will help. It is easy to bring the product in a bag to the country house, and take it with you when you leave. The simplest garden shower looks like a rubber mat, inside of which a foot pump is mounted. The source of water is any container installed on the ground. Two hoses depart from the pump: one for water intake, and the other for supplying it to the watering can.

The portable shower works from trampling your feet on the rug. Inside the pump is a diaphragm, inlet and outlet valve. They pressed the mat with one foot – the inlet valve opened, and the membrane drew water from the tank into the pump. They stepped on the other foot – the intake valve closed, and the exhaust valve opened. Water under pressure went to a hose with a watering can. Mobile shower can be used anywhere in the country yard. Best on the lawn in the garden.

We draw up a project for a stationary summer shower for a summer residence

For the construction of a stationary warm shower for a summer residence, you will need to develop a project. Do not be afraid, there is nothing complicated in this. For the simplest construction, the usual scheme, drawn by hand on a landscape sheet, is suitable. The drawing indicates all the dimensions of the future shower stall.

Usually erecting a do-it-yourself heated shower, adhere to the standard parameters:

• cabin height – from 2 to 2,5 m;
• width – 1 m;
• depth – 1,2 m.

In some cases, the width and depth of the shower cubicle can be increased. For example, for obese people or when arranging a locker room. In such cases, the width of the shower stall is increased to 1,6 m.

Choosing a place to install a shower in the country

You can install an outdoor shower in any corner of the summer cottage. There are no special requirements for this building. With reasonable thought, no one will put a shower in the yard. It is better to do this behind the house or in the garden, because for the shower you will have to organize a small drain. It is advisable to place the booth in a sunny area to organize natural heating of water from the sun. In order to save building materials, a shower stall can be attached to any building on the south side.

If an outdoor shower in the country house is installed as a separate building, it is advisable not to remove it from the house. After all, it is better to make a water tank with electric heating, which means that you will need to pull wiring from the electric meter to it.

Preparing the base for a country shower

Do-it-yourself building a shower in the country house begins with preparing the place where the booth will be installed. According to the size of the shower house, they dig a recess no more than 50 cm. The bottom of the pit is covered with a layer of sand 15 cm thick, and on top with the same layer of rubble. With rare use of the shower or if no more than two people bathe per day, the base can be left in this state. Water will pass through the drainage layer and soak into the ground.

To organize large drains, it is necessary to make a drain into the cesspool, and concrete the base. Alternatively, instead of concreting, the floor can be made from an acrylic pallet.

We are building a foundation for an outdoor shower in the country

Most often, a columnar foundation is built for a shower in the country. The photo shows options for its arrangement from different materials. In any case, holes are dug under the pillars with a depth of at least 80 cm. The bottom is covered with a layer of sand and gravel 30 cm thick. Further installation of the pillars depends on the material used:

• Pillars made of bricks or any other blocks are laid out on cement mortar.
• Poles can be made from pieces of asbestos or metal pipes with a diameter of 150–200 mm. They are inserted into each hole, after which they are poured with concrete.
• For pouring monolithic pillars inside the pits, formwork is made of plywood. Four reinforcement bars are inserted inside each hole and a concrete solution is poured.

In any case, a stud with a protruding thread is embedded on each pole. They are needed to secure the frame of the shower stall with nuts. All pillars should rise above the ground about 30 cm, and at the same level.

Arrangement of a drain pit

If a lot of people bathe in the shower for a heated cottage, the drainage floor will not have time to absorb a large amount of water. For drains, you will have to organize a cesspool. It is dug up to a depth of 2 m at a distance of at least 3 m from the shower stall. It is important to place the pit no closer than 5 m from the house and 15 m from the water source.

It is not necessary to build country cesspools for outdoor showers from expensive materials. It is optimal to use old car tires:

• Dig a hole according to the size of the tires. A hole with a diameter of 100 mm and a depth of about 1 m is drilled at the bottom with a drill.
• On a PVC sewer pipe 2 m long, holes are drilled on the sides. Moreover, perforation is made on a pipe section 1 m long.
• The pipe is inserted with the non-perforated end into the drilled hole. 1 m of pipe with holes should remain on the surface. This area, together with the end face, is wrapped with geotextile. Wire is used to secure the fabric.
• The bottom of the cesspool for the shower is covered with a layer of rubble 60 cm thick. After that, tires are stacked on top of each other.
• Further work is aimed at arranging the drain itself. From the floor of the shower stall to the cesspool, they dig a trench with a slight slope. It is needed in order for the water to move by gravity through the pipeline.
• A PVC pipe with a diameter of 50 mm is laid in the trench. One of its ends is brought to the center of the base of the shower stall, and the other – inside the cesspool. At the same time, a window is cut out on the tire tread, through which the pipe is inserted.

The cesspool for the shower is ready, it remains only to make a cover and attach a ventilation pipe with a cap to it.

Building a shower

To build a country shower with heating, they begin with the assembly of the frame, and the frame of the lower trim is assembled first. The frame can be welded from a steel profile, but it will be easier to use wooden blanks. So, the frame of the lower trim of the country shower is knocked down from a bar with a section of 100×100 mm. After that, it is laid on the foundation, secured with anchor studs with nuts.

When the lower trim of the country shower is ready, proceed to install the racks. For their manufacture, a bar with a section of 100×50 mm is used. Racks are placed at the corners of the future shower stall, and two additional ones in front for hanging doors. The width of the doorway is optimally maintained within 700 mm.

From above, the frame of the shower is fastened with a strapping of timber with a section of 100×100 mm. That is, they knock down exactly the same frame as for the lower trim. Outside, the finished shower frame is sheathed with wooden clapboard. Inside it is better to use plastic sheets, because of their resistance to dampness. The door is knocked down from a board 20 mm thick or a plastic one is bought in a store. To the shower stall it is hinged on the racks of the doorway.

For swimming on cool days in the country, it is better to equip an insulated shower. Wooden paneling holds heat well, but since there is space between the exterior and interior, it is better to insulate the walls of the shower. This can be done with foam sheets 10 mm thick.

The roof of the country shower is made single-pitched, but in order to save money, a square water tank is used instead of a roof. A factory-made plastic tank is selected in such a size that it completely covers the shower stall. Since we are building a warm shower in the country, we also need to buy a container with heated water from electricity.

Tips for choosing a shower tank

So, we figured out how to build a cabin for a country shower, now we turn to its arrangement. Instead of a roof, there will be a square-shaped plastic tank. It is better to buy a container in black. In such a tank, water will not bloom. Even dark color attracts heat, so in sunny weather, water heating will occur naturally.

In addition to the built-in heating element, it is better if the shower tank is with a thermostat. It will help to heat the water to the desired temperature, after which it will turn off the heating element.

Automatic tank filling with water

Pouring water for the shower into the tank is carried out manually with buckets from the stairs, but this is a very laborious procedure. It is better, according to the proposed scheme, to make autofill from a water supply or well. The water supply is connected through a float, which will regulate its level in the tank. Two control drains are taken out of the tank into the sewer. One pipe (brown in the diagram) is fixed at the bottom of the tank to completely drain the water for the winter. The second tube (green in the diagram) is fixed at the top of the tank. Through it, excess water is drained in the event of a float breakage.

If you fix two more pipes inside the tank in the same way (blue and orange in the diagram), then you can put a mixer in the shower. The orange pipe will supply hot water to the watering can, and the blue pipe will supply cold water. As a result, the mixer will make the water warm, such as it is necessary for bathing.

In the video, an example of a heated shower:

Reviews of summer residents

The reviews of summer residents will tell about the positive qualities of using a heated shower in a suburban area.