Humanity's greatest invention: hot showers ! 😍
The plan was to build a hidden shower that is revealed by sliding the sink module out of the way, with curtains dropping from an upper cabinet.
Here is the temporary result prior to building the upper cabinet. The curtain rods are 4 corners made of PVC plumbing pipes sliding into each other. A 1/8" elastic cord keeps them tight for storage, as in the pic:
Note the foot extension at the bottom of the pic that expands the space and catches the bottom of the curtain to avoid water dripping in the aisle. It will be waterproofed with fiberglass later.
Curtain rods extended:
The shower pan was built out of a wood substrate:
After embedding 3 magnet stacks in the drain cavity, visible in the pic above, several layers of fiberglass made the surface waterproof. The magnets will hold the drain cover in place.
The square plug in the pic below is a counterform shaped to the drain cavity's final dimensions. It was used to press in the fiber layers and resin in the cavity during curing. This ensured a well formed and smooth drain shape. 3 layers of thick Gorilla tape initially covered it. 1 layer at a time was peeled off each time 2 fiberglass layers were glassed in and cured.
After each curing step the plug could still easily be removed, as it was also wrapped in packing tape, which resin does not adhere to.
A few coats of epoxy paint later:
The drain consists of a 3/16" ID pipe to pick up the water pooling in the drain cavity. It can be seen on the upper left corner of this pic:
It connects first to a filter and then to the drain pump, whose head is visible at the bottom of the pic. Since the grey water tank is in the sliding sink module, the pump then pushes the water through another 3/16" pipe routed in a 18x25mm cable drag chain
The chain runs between 2 parallel walls under the shower pan:
The chain carries the drain pipe, the drain pump switch signal, and the 12V and 110V power lines. 12V powers the pump that pressurizes the water system. And 110V is used by the water heater.
A 12V heating strip hugs the whole drain pipe to prevent freezing. It also wraps around the filter and pump to keep them warm:
It is controlled by a basic XH-W3001 temperature controller. Visible in the upper right corner of the pic above.
After installing a flex hose, and a switch to control the drain pump (red button in the pic), the shower was ready for a test:
How did it go ? Well, taking a hot shower at the end of a day of ice climbing was pure bliss. Again proving that showers = best invention ever 😍
However, despite taking military-like showers consuming only 0.5 to 1 gallon (2 to 4 liters), draining the water was agonizingly slow. It took more than 10', due to intake restrictions with the pickup head. Will have to fix that...
Actually, to simplify the whole drain pipe system, maybe it could have all been mounted on the sliding module, simply using a flexible snorkel to pick up the grey water ? Should have thought of that before embarking on this whole maze of pipes & wires...
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