The best way to take an outdoor shower isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible either. You can set up an outdoor shower with only a few tools and pieces of equipment, or you can choose the easiest solution by purchasing an all-inclusive model online or at your local hardware store. Here’s how to make and use the best outdoor shower, whether you have help or you’re doing it all on your own.
Introduction: why we built a makeshift outdoor shower
We moved to our new home in the mountains six months ago. There’s not much around, but we love that it’s remote. We’re in a valley and when you climb up any of the hills there are no roads or homes or anything else. It’s just trees, plants, and wild animals. The only thing we don’t have is running water and electricity. So every day when it gets hot outside we head up to this little spring-fed stream about 3/4 mile away from our house where we can take a nice cool utedusch!
Our favorite way to do it is to find a big flat rock by the stream where I can stand on one side of it while my husband stands on the other side with his back turned towards me.
Materials list: what we used to build it
We used a tarp to create a makeshift ute dusch. It was surprisingly simple to put together: we just cut a hole in the tap, placed it on the ground, and turned on our water faucet. The pressure of the water was strong enough to push it out through the hole in our tarp and give us plenty of room to shower under. We were still able to use our composting toilet as well since there was no need to worry about any messes that might happen while showering–the tarp caught all of them!
Tools needed: what you need to get started
Luckily, we had some scrap wood and a tarp lying around. We used these materials to build an outdoor shower that catches the water from our Toaster. The first thing we did was lay out the tarp and measure its dimensions to make sure it matched up with those of our shower head. Next, we cut four pieces of wood to size using a hand saw. We nailed two pieces together in a T shape and used them as the frame for our outdoor shower.
Step 1 – Create Holes for Water Runoff
We secured our tarp on a tree branch overhanging the house and cut off some of the extra canvas to make room. We then took 2 shorter pieces of rope and tied one to each of the top corners. We made holes in a pattern so that water would trickle down, not too fast but not too slow. After we were finished with all our first few steps, I couldn’t wait to use it because it felt like it was coming along just as planned!
Step 2 – Find Design Inspiration (two sentences)
Outdoor shower inspiration from as far back as 1922 can be found here, including how this family turned their outdoor shower into a small-but-fun place in their yard where they can take all-day showers.
