Hot water doesn't last very long

[EmmaJ1]

Hello,
I've been looking at your website and was wondering if I could ask a question please.
My Husband and I have recently bought a 1998 4-5 berth Abbey Oxford Caravan. We are actually living in it while our house is being done up. We have never owned or used a caravan before and are finding some things a bit tricky to use. The main problem that we have the moment is the hot water. We get very hot water for a minute or so (scalding) and then the temperature gradually drops until it is back to cold. As you can imagine this is not fun especially when you're trying to have shower. Could anyone give me a little advise please and tell me whether this is normal or not and whether we are just going to have to live with it? I'm hoping that it's not normal as I'm not looking forward to freezing cold showers in the middle of winter.
Hoping to hear good news :

Thanks in advance.
Emma

 

[Damian]

I am pretty sure you will have a Carver Cascade water heater, in which case it has a 9 litre hot water tank, which will be heated to 70 degrees when switched on.
As you draw water, the hot is replaced by cold, so it will cool off quite quickly as it will be mixing with the hot water.

It is impossible to have showers which last very long in a caravan, simply because of the size of the hot water tank.
To speed up the reheating process, you can , for a limited time, run it on both gas and electric which will reheat the water more quickly.

Unfortunately a shower in a van involves wetting youself, turn off the water, soap up, then rinse. No 20 or 30 minute relaxing showers I am afraid.

 

[EmmaJ1]

Hi,
Thanks for your swift reply.
Yes we do have a Carver Cascade water heater! Oh so that's normal. I guess we'll have to get used to it then

Thanks again.
Emma

 

[Jennifer2]

I do not think that what you are experiencing is normal at all. We had the Carver Cascade in our previous van and it was perfectly possible to have a decent shower.

You do need to get wet first, turn off water while soaping up, but there should be plenty of water for a good rinse.

9 litres of piping hot water, mixed with the cold is more than enough for a shower.

We used/use our own shower in the van all the time and it is/was fine. You should certainly get at least 5 minutes of acceptably warm water.

Put on both gas and electricity to heat the water about 15 minutes before you shower and leave both on while showering.

 

[DeliDave_]

We also get a decent shower we have a spring loaded trigger shower as posted by Sproket,it certainly is no power shower but it gets you clean I think the shower head was about a tenner I'll try the search and see if I can find it

 

[WatsonJohnG]

We have the trigger head but it was FOC from Swift a while ago when they were testing them
If you have bowl or can use the sink its better to get the water to temp by mixing hot and cold in the bowl before showering
As has been said wet yourself all over and then use the water in the bowl for soaping up before tipping whats left in the bowl over yourself to rinse and finish off with shower water
We used to have the hopper type of sink in the toilet compartment and you could use it as above and then lift the basin out to swill off
If you use the gas and electric heating sources at the same time it warms up quicker and you can set the gas water temp to max

 

[LMH]

I always heat the water on gas now as I find it seems to be quicker to heat up.

We can get a decent shower too but one thing I have noticed and I'm sure its not my imagination is that if we are not on hookup, the pressure of the shower drops slightly, is that normal?

And what's 'spring loaded trigger shower' - could we have more info please.

Thanks.

Lisa

 

[EmmaJ1]

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for all your advice. This morning I put both the gas and electric heaters on and it made a real difference. Yes you have to turn the water off and on in between washing but there was hot water right until the end when it just started to cool down a bit. For once I came out of the shower feeling properly rinsed off and not stressed from rinsing in cold water. Thanks very much!!

Emma

 

[MichaelE]

I think the answer is here "We have never owned or used a caravan before and are finding some things a bit tricky to use"
A caravan shower is not like a home shower and has already been stated its a case of getting yourself wet shampoo and rinse off.
We had some friend staying over and only one had a shower as they had a problem,she had used all the on board tank and hot water some 50 lts in one shower.
The voltage to the pump when not on EHU will be lower so yes you will see a drop in pressure ,more so with a pressure switch set up

 

[WatsonJohnG]

http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=en-GB&rlz=1T4GGLL_en-GBGB304GB304&q=caravan+trigger+shower+head&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=RRu4TJHVGNO14QarseWhDg&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CDwQrQQwAg