Bathhouse for camp ideas???

[ncstewart]

So I need some help on what to do. Like title says I am planning on building a bathhouse at my camp but not sure where to start. I have no real building experience so any ideas would be appreciated.
I have water and electricity on site. I also have a septic tank in place from my old house. I am wanting to build it like 6x8 with toilet and shower.
Would you build it on a slab or just pier and beam?
How would you do the plumbing to make it easy to winterize?
What do y'all think of tankless water heaters?
Any and all advice is appreciated.

Thanks,
Nathan



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[loshonhora]

first of all, make it bigger so you can include a changing room with hooks and a bench, and maybe a screened in area to air out your hunting clothes. make sure all plumbing pitches back to the supply and install a drain valve to drain the whole system. you can use a frost free hydrant to supply it, and disconnect the water line when not in use. plumb with pex pipe, since it is somewhat burst resistant. a tankless water heater would be perfect for this because you don't have to drain a 40 or 50 gallon tank every time. put rv antifreeze into the toilet bowl to make sure it doesn't freeze.

 

[Bill]

I like the idea of making it bigger and a screen house. No need for a slab. We had one years ago at a hunting cabin and used 2x8 floor joist with plywood on the top and bottom. The top floor was removable and we stored pots and pans and other stuff in the floor.

I don't have any pictures but at my place I spent 3 springs in a muddy wet crawl space fixing ruptured copper pipes. No more of that today. I converted the whole system to pex with a Manablock. Each fixture is on its own line. Put an air compressor fitting on the hot side and the cold side of the manifold by pipe clamping it into a pex hose.

The entire system can be blown out 1 port at a time in about 10 minutes by just hooking up the compressor and opening one line at a time.

Here's a manifold pic I found on the net. Who ever did this system didn mark the lines but it's a good idea to mark what goes where right on the block.

 

[j-bird]

I would not put it on a slab. I would elevate it up off the ground with gravel under it. I would use decking for the floor to facilitate air circulation. Yes it's going to be cold, but air circulation will be key to keeping rot, mold, mildew and the like under control. Screened or louvered sections for further air circulation would be nice as well. I also like the pex idea for several reasons......it's also much easier to repair a line if it does break. Tankless water heater is a great idea. May even find a way to make it so you can remove and take home to prevent damage or theft (people will steal dumb things). Having a septic system there already is awesome so you don't have any issues with dealing with disposal.

 

[dsinwi]

Not a whole lot to add to what's been said. I'd probably just go with decking over a slab. I guess that would depend on how much use it gets. I would not consider anything other than a tankless water heater. Design your water system so you can easily drain it when winterizing. I'd also be looking at some kind of heat source. Your going to need it should you be using it under freezing conditions.

 

[mthompson]

I'm thinking about doing the same thing at camp next summer. I have a wall tent with wood stove, but my in-laws have campers. We have septic, electricity and a sand point well in place this past summer. The problem is that they winterize their campers by mid to end of October, and I hate using that cramped bathroom anyway! Then, once it's all winterized I do the baby wipes shower thing, and we have a port-a-john to put in the shed (too many neighbors around to dig a pit by a log for winter use). In summer, we use the outside shower on one of the campers ; run the shower head into one of those pop-up 2-room privy shelters and have the port-a-john on the other side.....it works ok, but still have the john to dump and the small volume water heater on the camper sucks when you have 6 adults and 5-6 kids in camp)

I refer to my in-laws as a bunch of bulldozers, meaning that they won't plan ahead and work out the best solutions to problems....they just come upon a problem, lower the blade and push through to the end....and that is good enough. The current outdoor shower/toilet is a good example. They needed a solution to the small bathroom problem, so the quickest, simplest, most immediate solution was a pop-up tent with a hole cut in the side for the shower handle (and another because they forgot that the water controls are away from the shower handle on the camper) and then Coleman port-a-john...straight bulldozer. Well, the tent was about $120 bucks, the john another $100, and you gotta set it up and dry it and tear it all down...plus lug the john over to the septic and empty it, rinse it, inevitably spill crap everywhere....it's just not ideal. And after a year or two, it'll all need replacing again.

Well that ain't me. I'm a planner, one who draws up blueprints, thinks on stuff for a few weeks, revise, analyze, repeat...I tend to dream about these problems at night and will work out solutions in my sleep. So, this past weekend when my brother and I were at camp in the wall tent and sitting around the woodstove enjoying some brandy manhattans....man I want to go back already....I digress, we got to talking about options. Here's what we sorta worked out:

• Basically, we're thinking about building a bathroom in a shed, sorta near the septic.
• Run a 4" drain from the septic to the shed for the toilet
• Have the shower and sink drain straight into a gravel pit under the shed (sand as far as you dig, so no issues draining here). Winterizing this would be just dumping a jug of antifreeze in the toilet bowl to fill the trap.
• I'm thinking the easiest means of supplying water is to have a large external reservoir on a stand, and use gravity feed to the sink and toilet.
  this would be easy enough to run the hose over and fill it once in a while, and then open a valve to drain it when leaving camp.
  
• Might have to put a fish tank heater in there for longer cold-weather stays, or maybe figure out an inside reservoir.
  
• Then use an Ecotemp L5 propane instant water heater/shower unit with 12v pump from the reservoir.
  
• A small solar panel to keep a deep cycle charged up for the pump
  
• 12v waterproof led strip lights around the ceiling for light.

Winterizing would be simple with this set-up, and could be done even for day or short overnight trips for the toilet and sink. At least a lot less work than messing with the port-a-john! In winter you could even just flush the toilet with a bucket whenever you used it, then just dump some antifreeze in the bowl before you leave. We'd just have a small reservoir for the shower to pump out of....showers in winter camp aren't a huge deal anyway.

Other ideas we're thinking is maybe a rain water collection system, but I gotta look into using that for a shower (I personally tend to drink a lot of water during a shower...old habit I guess).

Anyway, I have a few months to ponder and draw up some plans. This will be a good place to work through the options since at least a couple of us have similar needs.

 

[ncstewart]

Ok guys thanks a lot. I think I got a decent idea of what direction I need to go with this. Once I get a plan going I'll post pics but it'll be the spring before I get going on this.



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[buckdeer1]

I have seen where guys will clean the round up tanks that are in the tube frames and mount 8ft off ground for there supply,alot of them paint the tanks so they last longer and dont make alge