Simple Shower Evap?

[alexcaste]

Hi,

Last time we went our shower evap sucked. I am wondering if anyone has a suggestion on how to set up a simple shower evap for a shower for 4-5 people.

Not looking for anything fancy just something that works well and is easy setup and tear down if possible.

[The CO]

Lots of good ideas and experience in this thread.

viewtopic.php?f=327&t=12911

[Ratty]

What did you have last time? The most popular model is the black plastic wading pool. (Made from 2 x 4 lumber and plastic sheeting). It's a challenge to keep the neighbors from dumping their water into it. It also fills with playa. At the end of the week it's challenging to get rid of the last bit. If you bring 5 gallon buckets for emergency toilets, bring the lids too and take some icky water home with you. If I needed such a thing I would add a 'wicking' apparatus to it. Anything that draws the moisture up and spreads it out to be blown away in the breeze.

[NOLAphile]

Although it's not an EVAP option, it's SO easy to find old grey water tanks and barrels free or really cheap on craigslist. Just pay $60 to get it pumped out at the end. It saves the headache.

[Captain Goddammit]

Or carry them out. If you carried that water in, you can carry it back off the playa.
I never screw with a messy, stinky, muddy evap pond. I just dump my grey into barrels.

[mojo]

There is only one job in camp cleanup as bad as cleaning up the black plastic evap pond - that's beating the dust out of any carpets. Honestly, just use your emergency potty buckets just before you leave and haul it out.

[Chowski]

Buy a garden sprayer, stand on a towel, rinse, lather, rinse. Hang the towel to dry. Voila!

Alternatively, 4-5 people a day, at 1 gallon per shower for seven days = 30-40 gallons of stinking grey water to carry out, excluding cooking, cleaning, toothpaste, beer dregs. Evap ponds don't work.

Best idea: don't camp with people who must shower.

[Meat Hunter]

This link is straight from the BM website regarding the methods of disposing of grey water and the methods NOT to use:

http://burningman.org/event/preparation ... gray-water

[Captain Goddammit]

Best idea: don't camp with people who must shower.

If that doesn't bother you why does grey water with some bleach in it, capped shut in a barrel bother you?

[LowePro]

AlexC,
shower evap sucks. These comments are spot on. A garden pump is very water efficient and makes a nice high-pressure shower. Add a 90degree elbow to the spray tip and you have a handheld showerhead (way better than a solar shower bag). Stand in a plastic tub (concrete mixing pan from Home Despot) to shower. Put it behind the truck if you want privacy or rig up a simple lean-to frame next to it. When done with each shower, lift the pan and drain into a bucket or old water jug. Each camper has their own used water jug to take home. And/or hang up some old towels in camp, periodically soak them in the old water and evap as you go. The only parts you need are the tub, pump sprayer, a funnel, and some old jugs (which you probably have anyway). Any pool of standing/used water will only serve to self-perpetuate. Ironically, the less greywater you store, the less you generate. If you plan for more storage, you will generate much more.

[mudpuppy000]

This and some wash cloths are all you really need. You're going to get covered in playa dust in 30 minutes so long showers are kind of pointless.

[maladroit]

I don't really use a shower (spray bottle works fine) but our camp has some evap pond issues last year. Thinking of making a less complicated Evapotron using only one bike wheel with a sort of cloth sock around it, more of a disc than a drum. Should work with a tiny reservoir pond.

[hooker]

It seems that very few people do this anymore, but I think adding bleach and then sprinkling your grey water is the way to go. It means you have to collect it, treat it with bleach, and then use a garden watering bucket to sprinkle it. But it seems like the easiest way to deal with a few gallons of grey water per day.

From the org's prep guide:

Filter, treat and disperse small quantities of gray water. This method is only for small camps that already know how to minimize dishwater and body-washing water. If your gray water is both filtered and disinfected, and you don’t form mud, you will be within the rules.So, collect gray water in a container over which you have mounted panty-hose or a paint strainer. Add chlorine bleach regularly.In your own camp space (NOT public areas like roads or shortcuts), use a garden sprinkler-can (or improvised equivalent, even just a spoon) to distribute water very sparsely during the hottest hours of the day. The droplets must be sparse enough that they soak in and dry up quickly, and the surface stays hard.But keep in mind that somebody watching you might think that you are simply sloshing untreated gray water around, so be prepared to explain your careful process.

[uncle sticky]

Before bleaching, I use felt aquarium socks to filter out solids. Then disperse. You definitely get looks from the neighbors, but it's cleaner than the frog pond much they spread on the roads, and it's BM approved.

[vargaso]

This is my chemistry ignorance showing, but how is spraying chlorine on the playa a better option?

[BBadger]

Mostly the bleach/chlorine is to prevent the stored water from growing anything in it. It "treats" the water enough to suppress bacteria. However, tossing some bleach into the water just before spraying it on the playa or elsewhere isn't going to do much. While it might be a little cleaner in theory, I'd expect that anything in it would be pretty much dead anyway after evaporation.

[uncle sticky]

Based on this conversation, I went looking for the smallest pore filter sock out there. I found one that was .5 microns. That will filter out most micro organisms! However, playa dust? Not sure. Anybody know how small that stuff gets?

[Traveller in Time]

Based on this conversation, I went looking for the smallest pore filter sock out there. I found one that was .5 microns. That will filter out most micro organisms! However, playa dust? Not sure. Anybody know how small that stuff gets?

Perhaps ^Rhino! knows, he is studying the geology of the playa.
You can find him in the Local Bar version 2016

[GreyCoyote]

FWIW, chlorine is history after a couple of hours in the sun. Putting it onto the playa with your greywater isnt hurting anything. Using complex soaps however, is, as is adding particulate organics.

A sock makes a good prefilter, and when followed by a coffee filter makes a very capable grey water filter. Chlorinate the filtrate for a couple of hours, and its ready to be dispersed. Captured organics get dried and tossed in the trash for haul-out.

[uncle sticky]

So the intertubes tells me that a coffee filter is 10-20 microns. The filter sock I originally used, with bleach, was 50, so that's a good plan. I'm thinking the .5 Micron filter would be the final step, and make the water cleaner than drinking water.

[EGAZ]

Can confirm sock filter! I ran my grey through two, a splash of Bleach before each shower, no smell, no chunks.....

[Joeln]

Black plastic can work well. What is required is a really big layout and a squeegee pole to spread the water out.
We had up to 20 people a day showering and we would regularly spread the water out to evaporate. There was nothing left to clean up at the end except to roll up and dispose the (dry, dirty) black plastic.