A summer resident who wants to preserve his health and good spirits must wash off the dust and put on clean clothes after field work. And for this, a shower cabin is needed on the site. You can make such a structure with your own hands, observing all the subtleties of construction.

Types of country shower

The problem of adopting hygiene procedures at a summer cottage can be solved in several ways. Let's look at them, moving from simple to complex.

Portable

The portable device is sold as a set in a suitcase container. There are two varieties:

• with a soft polymer hanging bag with a volume of 16–20 l, equipped with a sprayer;
• with a pump - suction depth up to 1.5 m - to which a shower head is connected using a hose.

You can simply hang a bag or watering can on a tree, but then you will have to wash in a swimsuit or swimming trunks. To take a full bath, you will need to build something like a shower stall from opaque roll material, for example, plastic film or polypropylene (PP) tarpaulin, which is more preferable because it does not stick to the body.

The lightweight shower design can be installed anywhere - no foundation is required for its installation

The easiest way to place such a fence is near the wall of the house. Firstly, it is convenient to attach a cornice to the wall for hanging curtains, therefore, racks are not needed; secondly, in this case, fencing is required only on three sides. Thus, the cornice can be made semicircular by bending a heated PP pipe.

Pins or pieces of pipe are embedded in the wall onto which the cornice will be mounted. You will also need to attach a holder for hanging a bag or shower head with dowels.

Placing the shower near the wall of the house helps save materials

The advantages of a portable shower are as follows:

• low cost;
• mobility;
• there is no need not only for any construction, but even for organizing a cesspool: water can flow directly into the flowerbed.

It is clear that one should not expect anything special from this purely camping option. The disadvantages will be:

• Possibility of operation only in hot weather;
• no water heating;
• the impossibility of frequent and long-term use, since the soil in the place where the water drains can quickly turn sour.

Modular

A modular shower is a completely finished cabin, often equipped with adjustable legs. The owner of such a shower will also not have to deal with drainage issues, since there is a built-in septic tank inside, the filler of which will need to be changed periodically.

The module is fully equipped and ready for use

The only drawback is the significant cost, which not every summer resident is willing to accept.

Light summer shower

For a summer shower, a frame is made of polypropylene pipes, covered with rolled or rigid sheet material. Walls can also be formed from available materials, for example, from willow vines like wattle.

A garden shower with a wicker cabin looks attractive in a summer cottage

But it is best to use matte (non-visible) polycarbonate sheet - it partially transmits solar heat. An attractive feature of this material is that it can be bent to form a rigid, self-supporting wall (prestressed structure). Thus, racks for a round polycarbonate shower cabin will not be needed - the frame will consist only of two rings of PP pipe (they are also pre-stressed), located at the top and bottom.

Polycarbonate is not visible, but transmits sunlight well

The requirements for polycarbonate are minimal: the cheapest 4 mm sheet with a 2R structure from any manufacturer will do.

A small water tank is installed on top of the cabin, which may have an electric heater (such tanks are commercially available today).

The water tank can be heated

Being designed for full-scale use, such a shower requires a cesspool, and therefore cannot be attached to the wall of the house. In order to avoid the foundation being washed away by infiltration, the cesspool must be at least 15 m away from the house. But the construction still cannot be considered complex, since a lightweight and flexible building, even with high heaving soil, does not require a foundation.

All that needs to be done is to remove the fertile layer of soil and fill it with sand and crushed stone in layers of equal thickness (minimum 15 cm each), then drive reinforcing bars into the ground on which the frame will be placed.

In case of distortion due to soil movements, the frame is made collapsible, connecting PP pipes and corners not by welding, but by self-tapping screws (for this, the corners need to be taken one size larger). The shower will be easy to repair by replacing damaged parts. Self-tapping screws must be phosphated - they can be recognized by their black color. Diameter - 4.2 mm.

It is best to use PP tarpaulin as soft covering. In cool weather, a cabin made of such material will be warmer than a polyethylene one, and in hot weather it will not be so stuffy.

A significant disadvantage of a light shower is that it is only suitable for use in warm weather.

All weather

“All-weather” means the ability to use throughout the entire summer season, including early spring and late autumn, when it is relatively cold outside. The building is also frame, but in comparison with the previous version it has a number of improvements:

• in addition to the washing department, there is a locker room;
• the walls are equipped with insulation;
• heating is present.

The frame must be built from wood or rolled metal - PP pipes have too low strength. Due to the poor resistance of these materials to moisture, it has to be raised above the ground, which requires the construction of a pile or columnar foundation. The durable frame allows you to install a larger water tank.

All-weather shower has two compartments

Capital

A building constructed from brick or foam blocks. Construction is labor-intensive and expensive, but in terms of durability, such a shower is significantly superior to all others.

The foundation can be made as a solid monolithic slab- due to the small size of the structure, it will not require large expenses.

A major shower requires a foundation

Choice of frame material

Before starting construction, you need to select the frame material. As was said, plastic pipes are no longer needed due to insufficient strength, so you have two options to choose from: wood or rolled metal.

Wood

Positives:

• low cost;
• ease of processing.

The disadvantage is a short service life due to susceptibility to rotting and drying out.

Beams of a certain cross-section are suitable for the frame

Specifically you will need the following lumber:

• for the bottom trim: insulated shower - timber with a section of 150x150 mm, lightweight - from 60x60 mm (optimal - 100x100 mm);
• for racks, oblique ties and top trim: board with a section of 100x40 mm.

Rolled metal

It is important to understand that in this case we are not talking about galvanized metal profiles with a thickness of 1.5–2.5 mm - this material is not suitable for such tasks. A channel with a height of 50–80 mm is used as the lower frame; the posts and other frame elements are made of a square pipe from 25x25 mm with a wall of 1.5 mm to 40x40 mm with a wall of 2 mm.

A shower with such a frame will cost much more than a wooden one, and it is also more difficult to build - steel is more difficult to process, and electric welding will be required to connect the parts. But the gain will be significant: the frame will be stronger and more durable.

Metal construction is more durable

Calculation of shower sizes

The drawing shows the dimensions of the shower

Choosing a waste disposal method

Even if a cesspool or septic tank for a toilet has already been built on the site, the shower room must be equipped with a separate structure. This is explained by the presence in shower drains large quantity alkalis and surfactants that can destroy beneficial microflora in the septic tank.

Sanitary standards require making cesspools with a volume of 2 m3 or more. But this requirement is relevant for standard drains. In the case of a shower, their value will be much smaller, so the volume of the pit can be reduced. Since, due to the need to heat the water, showers one way or another have to be taken with long pauses, its size can be taken equal to the volume of the shower water tank.

Another important question is how deep wastewater can be dumped into the ground so that the chemicals it contains do not poison the fertile layer. With a volley discharge of up to 50 l or a gradual discharge of up to 100 l/h, the safe depth is two thicknesses of the fertile layer. A country shower fits well into these figures.

Therefore, instead of a full-fledged cesspool, you can make a drainage well from a metal barrel with a height of 0.85 mm and a volume of 200 liters. We can guarantee that such a height will certainly be enough, since a fertile layer with a thickness of over 40 cm is quite rare in summer cottages.

If the thickness of the humus is small, you can use a smaller plastic barrel, the main thing is that it is not smaller in volume than the shower water tank.

You can build such a well directly under the shower stall.

The volume of the wastewater receiver must be no less than the storage tank

If you decide, as is often advised, to make a drainage well from old tires, then do not forget to periodically disinfect it with bleach: internal space tires, the water will stagnate.

Preparing tools

The builder must have the following available:

• pegs and a roll of twine - for marking the territory;
• garden auger;
• shovels and bayonet shovels;
• bubble and water (hose) levels;
• plumb line;
• roulette;
• wood hacksaw;
• grinder with cutting disc for metal;
• drill;
• hammer, screwdriver (or screwdriver);
• marker, chalk or pencil for marking materials.

At the shower installation site, the top fertile soil layer is completely cut down to the underlying layer.

Construction of a pile foundation

Piles in mandatory should be installed at the corners of the building and, if necessary, along the perimeter, so that the distance between adjacent supports does not exceed 1.5 m. The length of the piles must be selected so that their lower end rests on non-freezing soil, and the head is located at a height of approximately 30–45 cm above earth. This height is determined by the sum of the heights of the low tray (see below), the siphon attached to it and the ventilation gap, which should be 20–25 cm.

The height of the pile above the ground should be approximately 30–45 cm

Bored piles should be used. They are created in the following way:

If the soil is weak and you need to increase the support area, get a camouflage attachment for the drill. It allows you to make a widening at the base of the well, in which, after pouring concrete, a so-called camouflage heel is formed.

Another option: you can use as piles sections of steel pipe with a diameter of 60 to 150 mm, the ends of which are flattened by blows of a sledgehammer. For driving, the same sledgehammer or headstock, made from a suitable piece of cast iron, is used. The disadvantage of such piles is the high corrosion rate, which is due to the lack of waterproofing. In a bored pile, the concrete is protected from moisture by a pipe (the asbestos one must be coated with bitumen mastic).

Construction of a drainage well

The well is constructed in the following sequence:

1. A pit is dug with a depth equal to the height of the barrel.
2. The barrel with the bottom cut off is installed in the recess. If it does not have a lid, but only a narrow neck, then in the upper plane you need to cut inspection hatch. You will need to choose a tight-fitting lid for it.
3. The pit is backfilled.
4. Fine crushed stone is poured inside the barrel in a layer 15–20 cm thick.

   Crushed stone is a good filter

5. Liquid is poured evenly onto the backfill in a thin stream. clay mortar, prepared at the rate of 1–1.5 kg of clay (any will do) per bucket of water. Stop pouring the solution only when it completely covers the crushed stone.
6. After the solution has dried (it will take 1–2 days), the filter should be thoroughly stirred by repeatedly piercing the entire surface with a sharpened reinforcing rod. If you have a welding machine, then for ease of work, the top of the barrel can be cut off, and after installing the filter, welded again.

   There is a filter inside the plastic container

Frame construction

You can start building the shower frame.

Floor construction

The floor in the shower should be made of tongue and groove boards, which are laid along the short side of the building. With a thickness of 40 mm, the boards can have a span of up to 1.5 m without supports, therefore, logs will not be needed.

The tongue and groove board is laid along the short side of the shower stall

To protect wood from moisture and rotting, it is best to use the following method:

1. The boards are treated twice with a water-polymer emulsion with a time interval of about 1 hour between treatments.
2. The wood then dries overnight. This process can be accelerated by placing the material in the sun. Then, if the weather is warm (in the shade +22 °C or more), it will be ready by the evening (if processing is performed in the morning).
3. The next stage is impregnation with an antiseptic. It is advisable that it be warm outside and that the boards warm up well in the sun before processing. Please note that some formulations are intended for processing under pressure - read the instructions carefully.
4. After 4 hours, acrylic varnish is applied in two layers. The second layer - after the first has dried (usually dries within a day). When the second layer has dried, you can begin laying the boards.

The frame and outer cladding can be treated in the same way if they are made of wood. Only instead of varnish, heated bitumen mastic should be applied in 2-3 layers.

Pallet installation

The drain can be organized using a linear drain installed along the wall, but it would be more rational to install a shower tray in the washing compartment. Recommended Specifications:

1. Type: Choose a model that is installed in a cutout in the floor rather than on legs (low tray).
2. Size: the most popular - 100x100 cm.
3. Material: enameled steel (acrylic wears out quickly in rural areas due to the large amount of sand).

You can purchase a tray with a side length equal to the width of the shower - then it can be rested directly on the bottom trim.

You can install a ready-made tray in the shower

Work order:

If you definitely want to have a wooden lattice, for example, from bars with a cross-section of 30x30 mm, the wood should be processed according to the same scheme as the floor boards. It is advisable, if costs are not a concern, to use the same composition instead of acrylic varnish to repair bathtubs - the coating will be more resistant to abrasion by soles.

Before use, the grate is treated in the same way as floor boards.

When entering a low pallet, unlike a high one, the user takes a normal step, as a result of which there is a high probability of slipping. Therefore, it is advisable to place the same grid in the pallet.

Frame covering

Now you can sheathe the walls, install the roof and door. The cladding is made double: from the inside, for example, they are installed plastic panels, then foam plastic is glued to them and the entire building is sheathed on the outside. Corrugated sheeting looks most attractive as an external cladding. Will be more accessible vinyl siding or plastic lining.

An opening window must be provided at the top of one of the cabin walls.

An opening window should be provided at the top of the wall for ventilation and natural light.

The roof of the shower room is made pitched with a slight slope. You can use the same corrugated sheeting, hemming it underneath with foam and plastic panels.

You can separate the washing room and locker room with a curtain. It is advisable that it be waterproof, otherwise, being indoors, the material will take a long time to dry and will soon dry out. For this reason, tarpaulin will not work - it is better to use regular polyethylene.

Tank installation

A tank for a country shower can be purchased at the store. In this case, you only need to install it on the roof and connect it to electricity (if there is a heating element), water supply and watering can. If you intend to make the tank yourself, consider the following requirements:

1. It is imperative to provide for the presence of sanitary drainage - a tube with a shut-off valve through which absolutely all the water can be drained (the source is located at the lowest point and flush with the bottom).
2. But the pipe for supplying water to the shower head cannot be located at the very bottom, otherwise sediment will pour onto the user’s head.
3. If you plan to connect the tank to the water supply by installing a float valve, then you need to add an overflow with a flow area twice the size of the valve. The tank lid must be at a sufficient distance from the float so that it is guaranteed to rise and completely shut off the tap.

The float must be able to completely close the tap

If the user plans to pour water into the tank manually, the design will be slightly different.

A manually filled tank differs in the height of the water supply pipe

As you can see, the pipe for supplying water to the watering can is located at the bottom, since the water level is constantly decreasing during the procedure.

Most often, the blank for a homemade tank is a steel barrel laid horizontally. Thanks to the cylindrical surface, sediment is completely removed from it. At the top you need to cut a wide inspection hatch, which will make it possible not only to fill the container and monitor its condition, but also to coat the inside with an acrylic composition for repairing bathtubs or enamel for yachts.

You can also use a plastic barrel. Since it is impossible to weld the pipes to it, threaded fittings with a flange are installed on the gaskets, secured externally with a nut and washer. Fortunately, the wide neck that plastic barrels are equipped with allows this to be done. It is important that the diameter of the washer and flange is at least 3 times greater than O.D. fitting (usually products with M12 - M16 threads are used), but it was not less than 40 mm. Otherwise, the fitting may become distorted due to temperature deformations.

It is better to install the barrel horizontally

A watering can and water supply are connected (if provided). In this case, the connection can be made not with pipes, but with a reinforced garden hose on clamps - it will be simpler and cheaper. You should choose a special shower head - with a valve.

If a heating element is installed in the tank, heating the water is not a problem. In this case, you will also have to heat the shower room inside before visiting with electricity, for example, with a fan heater. However, due to the high cost of electricity, this method of heating water is not suitable for everyone. In addition, it will not be possible to equip a homemade tank with a heating element according to all the rules, since emergency automation is required (protection against overheating of the heating element in case of a large amount of sediment and boiling water).

As an alternative, the following solution can be proposed: the tank is connected using supply and return pipelines to a water heating unit, through which the water will circulate, gradually heating up. Circulation will be provided by a circulation pump similar to those used in heating systems. With a large diameter of pipes in the mains and heat exchanger, installing a pump is not necessary - the water will circulate due to convection. In this case, the heat exchanger must be positioned so that its “hot” side is higher than the “cold” side. In this case, the heated water should be able to immediately rush upward.

The role of a water heating unit can be:

1. Solar collector. You can make a simple option yourself by placing a battery made of black-painted steel, copper or steel in a glass-covered box. aluminum pipes. A factory-made collector will require purchasing costs, but it will also be more efficient due to its use modern technologies much higher: some modern models are capable of heating water to +70 °C in cloudy conditions and 20-degree frost.

   A solar collector is an economical and environmentally friendly way to heat water using natural energy

2. Solar oven. It is a system of reflectors that focus sunlight from large area on the coil. The reflectors must be foil-coated, since a regular mirror reflects only the visible range well, and absorbs IR rays.

   You can make a solar oven yourself using a pattern

3. Cooking oven. Quite often, such a structure is erected in country houses to prepare food. A water heating register connected to the tank can be built into it.
4. Gas stove. If instead of a stove you use a stove connected to a gas cylinder, then a water heating circuit made of a copper tube with a diameter of 6–10 mm can be laid in the form of loops around the burners. Now the heat, which previously simply evaporated during cooking, will be absorbed by the water in the shower tank.

If you have a water heating unit for heating the washing room, you need to install any thin-walled heating radiator and carry out the “return” through it.

At this point, the process of building an all-weather shower can be considered complete.

Video: construction of a wooden shower on a summer cottage

Features of operation

In rural areas, a wide variety of pathogenic microorganisms always enter the water tank. In order not to turn the shower into a breeding ground for infection, it is highly advisable to regularly empty the container through sanitary drainage, draining away all accumulated sediment along with the water. If there is a break in the use of the shower for a week or more, this procedure must be completed.

A simple factory-made shower stall costs about 10 thousand rubles. For the same money, or even less, you can build a warm and durable country shower with a changing room. As you can see, the game is worth the candle, so you can, armed with our advice, get down to business.

As Ostap Bender would say, a shower for a dacha is not a luxury, but a means of hygiene. Moreover, a remedy of paramount importance: according to medical statistics, people who put off washing after a weekend at the dacha until they arrive home consult doctors about skin and gastrointestinal diseases 12% more often than others; There are no similar data for other types of health disorders.

You can buy a simple country shower, designed only for summer weather, for 10,000 rubles. Having spent an amount 2-3 times less, or even using scrap materials, you can build a warm shower with your own hands, suitable for bathing procedures from the beginning to the end of the summer season. In this case, a full range of amateur products is revealed - from a slimy kennel, the dream of a greedy dermatologist (there will be a lot of patients, they will start giving money) through buildings that are completely functional, hygienic and even almost do not spoil the appearance of the site, to structures made from, for example, construction waste, at the sight of which an experienced designer nods his head in understanding, see fig.

But, characteristically, there is no medical correlation with the type of shower - purchased, of different price categories, or homemade. A “super-duper company” for 70-100 rubles, with automation and touch-remote control, can turn out to be a breeding ground for infection, and a shower concocted from the dacha in the country will faithfully stand guard over the cleanliness and health of the owners for many years and decades.

Do-it-yourselfers and manufacturers are not to blame here; both of them do not lack effort, skill and consideration. It’s simple - no one really knows how to make it, a country shower. If there are any regulatory rules for its construction, then neither the builders, nor the plumbers, nor the orderlies know anything about them. It is clear that you need to do a country shower correctly in essence, i.e. so that it washes, and does not contaminate, and so that the contents of wastewater do not kill the earth and spoil the harvest, but how? It’s dark here, like in a Khrushchev bathroom when the plugs were knocked out.

For example, the minimum volume of a cesspool is 2 cubic meters. m, but this is with the standard volume of runoff, and at the dacha it is several times less. The biochemistry of the cesspool is disgusting, but well balanced; the pit should neither overflow nor dry out. Modern (combi-toilets) allow you to reduce the volume of the cesspool and the frequency of calls to the cesspool, but fundamentally the processes in the cesspool do not change. What volume and design do you need for an outdoor shower? I have no idea, as Barack Obama would say. The same applies to other components and structural elements. In fact, anyone who wants to make a country shower competently pulls according to the norm, first from here, then from there, and then maybe they will all come together. Or maybe they’ll separate and things will go wrong.

Well, let’s try to include what Mother Nature has so far deprived the American president of so far, in order to say at the end: “Well, at least I’ve found a good ideal!” We will design a summer shower for ourselves based on the principles:

• Hygiene - neither the shower itself nor the water for it should cause harm to those washing, only benefit.
• Environmental friendliness - shower drainage should not harm the environment either in the short term (in the form of compliance of the harvest from the site with sanitary standards) or in the long term (in the form of water quality from local water supply sources) perspective, in space and time.
• Practicality, which is also functionality - it should be not only possible, but pleasant and useful not only to freshen up in the heat, but also to wash in any weather from the first to the last trip to the dacha.
• Aesthetics - a shower cabin for a dacha should, at a minimum, not spoil the landscape design of the site, but, preferably, fit organically into it. An alternative is an invisible shower, dismountable or not conspicuous.
• Cost-effective – building a shower should require a minimum of labor, materials and financial costs, without compromising any of the previous qualities.

We will use existing norms and rules, but for verification purposes, so as not to invent nonsense. And we also use a good bit of knowledge about physical and chemical processes in nature and the soul. Data in regulatory documents- the tip of the iceberg and, since their single arch for country showers no, you'll have to go back to the basics. To build a shower correctly, let’s go from one critical node to another; what is in the middle will then be easier. Actually, in this order:

1. Base.
2. Drain and sump.
3. Choice of design.
4. Possibility of combining functions (shower combined with toilet, etc.)
5. Floor, pallet and platform.
6. Cabin - frame, walls, etc.
7. Diffuser (watering can), pipelines, shut-off valves.
8. Additional equipment – ​​water heater, cabin heating, pumping.

What does all-weather mean?

Item 3 of the list above is especially important for medical reasons. When it is violated, it no longer smells of itchy ankles and shoulders, but of things like pneumonia. A heated shower means more than just hot or warm water.

Let’s say it’s +13 outside, but you need to wash. The cabin has cooled down to the same temperature: insulation will only be useful (let the readers forgive the involuntary pun) if there are heat sources inside the washroom. Without them, you will have to tremble and cower for 2-5 minutes until the warmth of the spray from the watering can warms up the booth. And in the meantime hot water It may run out, the tank is not a vat tank.

So, you need to heat not only the water in the tank, but also the air in the shower. It is highly desirable to create a warm island in a light cabin with large gaps at the bottom and top. We'll see how to achieve this when it comes to additional equipment; For now, as they say, let’s tie a knot.

Children's question

Why is there a separate shower? In the apartment he is together. Because the dacha plots are not equipped with sewerage. Here it is appropriate to remember the rule: the cesspool must be located at least 15 m away from residential buildings. The point is not only in the miasma, but also in the fact that the filtrate from the cesspool can wash away the foundation of the house with all that it entails. It is still possible to install a shower in a country house. Then, if the house is heated, then the shower will be all-season.

Note: a bioseptic tank that produces almost no harmful fumes can, under certain conditions, be moved 4-5 m closer to the house. But this topic already relates to the construction of country toilets.

Country shower device

Base

When zero is not needed

The need for a zero-cycle dacha-shower work disappears in following cases, see fig. below:

• When using a compact portable shower, on the left in Fig.
• If the shower with adjacent outbuildings is ready-made modular, in the center in Fig.
• If the cabin is on a frame made of plastic pipes(propylene or PVC) with soft lining, right there.

Compact shower in a suitcase (on sale – large selection) is used in any random place, but is inconvenient for heating water; It is difficult to adapt a water heater to it, and compactness and mobility are immediately lost. Container - rinse for one or two people. This does not require a shower or a cesspool - there is not enough water in the tank, and no matter who and how they wash, the local ecology will digest such a volley of emissions.

Modular showers are designed to be installed directly on the ground. They are equipped with adjustable legs, which, when installed permanently, allows them to compensate for current soil movements. Modular seats for public use, citizens are more familiar with public dry toilets, but in addition to them and modular showers, they also produce kitchens, shelters, etc., so that you can assemble a full-fledged utility unit from the modules. This pleasure is by no means cheap; more modules are used to organize the convenience of professional field teams. A cesspool is not required, you only need to promptly change the filler of the built-in septic tank.

The frames of soft showers are placed on stakes made of reinforcing bars driven into the ground. If the frame is made of PP water pipes, then it is assembled using standard connectors, but one size larger, and not by soldering, but with self-tapping screws. The cabin turns out to be collapsible and quite reliable, because The frame is lightly loaded and absolutely repairable. The covering is most often made of colored tarpaulin: in hot weather the cabin is less parky, in cool weather it is warmer, and tarpaulin, unlike film, does not stick unpleasantly to a wet body. This design will withstand a 12-magnitude earthquake, as long as the earth itself does not disappear from under the shower. A cesspool is needed, so soft showers are not particularly popular: if you dig a hole, then it’s better to make a foundation, and put something more substantial and more attractive on it.

Under plastic

It is possible to build a shower cabin from light, elastic and chemically resistant materials with rigid cladding (see below) without a foundation, even on very heaving soil. To prevent it from tipping over, in this case, 30-40 cm of a non-fluffy pillow is enough. Specifically, sand and gravel backfill in layers of equal thickness. The thickness of the cushion is approximate; in fact, the upper humus layer of the soil is removed to the underlying rock: loam, sandy loam. Dacha plots do not stand out on meter-thick black soils, so you won’t have to dig very deep, but still - 30 cm, of which 15 sand and 15 gravel, this is the minimum. What if it becomes warped after winter, the booth can be moved back, the cushion can be leveled, and put back as it was.

Note: The plastic shower is attached to the ground with the lower ends of the pipes, placed on fittings driven into the ground, just like a soft shower. But there is a difference - since the structure is permanent, the stakes are driven into the ground at least 0.35 m below the bottom of the pillow, and better, if local conditions allow, to the freezing depth, then seasonal distortions are excluded.

Under the tree

In principle, a wooden shower can also be placed simply on a pillow, but double impregnation of wood with a water-polymer emulsion, biocides and then treatment with hot bitumen will protect the supporting frame and floor from rotting for 3-10 years, depending on local conditions. Wood treated in this way can maintain its strength for 30-40 years, but mold fungi and bacteria will get to where they put their feet and where their bodies rub much faster. Therefore, a shower cabin made of natural lumber should be raised above the ground by at least 20-25 cm, and for a hygienic cesspool (see below) - by 35-40 cm.

An example of the implementation of a foundation for a country shower

The means to ensure these requirements have been known for a long time - columnar or pile foundation. For such a light and freely “acting out” wooden structure, for reasons of economy, the second one is preferable. There is no need to buy expensive ones; it is better to make do with homemade ones. Simply - sections of pipes with a diameter of 60-150 mm (according to availability) with ends flattened into a spear. Next - a sledgehammer or a homemade woman (it is much easier to work with it), and - to the calculated freezing depth for the given area.

The location of the piles is 1 per corner and every full or incomplete 1.5 m of the contour. After trimming the protruding ends with a grinder using a hose level, anchor bolts (M12 - M16) are welded to the piles; The lower support frame - grillage - is placed on them and tightened with nuts and washers 40-60 mm in diameter.

An alternative option, again, depending on the availability of materials, is drilled piles made from asbestos-cement pipes. The wells are drilled to the same freezing depth using a hand drill. It is very good if there is a camouflage attachment for it, with which you can drill wells under a strip-pile foundation on heaving soils. Reinforcement of piles and pouring them with concrete are also similar to the above case. Asbestos-cement piles are cut to height using a grinder with a circle on the stone before reinforcement and pouring. Anchor bolts walled up to a depth of 120 mm.

Metal look

The foundation for a shower on a metal frame is the same as for a wooden one: If wood rots, then metal rusts. In this case, driven metal piles are preferable, and a 50-80 mm channel grillage is welded to them.

Under the brick

A brick shower in a country house is a rarity, labor-intensive and expensive. But it has a valuable advantage - it is easy to heat. It is enough to pass the return from the tank to the water heater through an old thin-walled heating radiator (see below), and in a closet with half-brick walls, insulation with 30 mm packaging foam, dimensions 1.2x1.2 m in plan and ceiling height 2.2 m at +8 outside in 4-5 hours it will be +22.

Brick buildings are not elastic, they are heavy, and therefore The foundation for a brick shower needs to be strong and stable. Since the structure in this case is small, a slab monolithic foundation turns out to be optimal in terms of labor intensity and costs. Its design is simple: a solid (required!) pillow is placed on the non-puffy pillow described above. reinforced concrete slab 170-300 mm thick and with a projection of 0.3-0.5 m beyond the contour of the building, this will be a blind area.

Concrete grade of great importance does not have, M150 will be enough. Reinforcement - a cage with a mesh (150-200) x (300-400) mm made of 12 mm rod. If you plan to equip the compact cesspool described below, then it is better to cast the slab on site, surrounding the recess for the barrel with formwork.

cesspool

As already mentioned, in order to maintain the biochemistry in the sewer pit necessary for the disposal of wastewater to a naturally processed level of pollution, the moisture content in it must be kept within certain limits. For example, the instructions for branded fillers for septic tanks clearly indicate: do not fill, it will sour and stink. Don’t let it dry out, the microflora will die and stop working altogether.

It is obvious that the drain from the shower is too liquid for a general cesspool at the dacha. But it also matters chemical composition: there is practically no household organic matter, a breeding ground for beneficial bacteria in the pit. Unless someone will use the shower, like Poligraf Poligrafych Sharikov from “Heart of a Dog,” using the toilet. But there is an excess of alkalis that are harmful to them (from soap) and detergents (surfactants, surfactants), from shampoos, gels, etc.

Therefore, discharging wastewater from the shower and toilet in a dacha into a common pit is a gross mistake from a biochemical point of view. The kitchen can also be combined with the toilet, but the shower needs to be allocated separately in special pit. In a city apartment, the situation is different: there, until the wastewater reaches the treatment plant, everything will mix and react so much that only the percentage composition of simple compounds and elements will matter. In any case, it is impossible to build a separate sewer system for the bathroom and toilet in the city.

Note: What kind of abominations do researchers sometimes have to delve into, eh? But it’s something necessary and useful.

Here the question arises: should we take out the extra 2 cubic meters of soil? Since the septic tank does not recycle the shower drain? And one hundred square meters of land is lost: from the harvest from the vicinity of a simple pit, the consumer supervision department will shriek and shy away when the analysis is done.

This is not at all necessary, if you take into account the time of heating the water, the subsequent maximum frequency of using the country shower and the volume of water in the tank (there can be no more one-time flow). That is, we are faced with 2 tasks: the first is to release the runoff into the ground little by little, so that organic acids from the soil have time to neutralize alkalis and decompose detergents. The second is to bring them into the soil below the fertile layer so as not to kill soil micro-living creatures. And organic acids, a product of its vital activity, will leak from above.

Calculations, which, unfortunately, there is no space to describe here, show that a drain of 100 l/hour or 50 l in one gulp (for a country shower for normal users, this is, as they say, above the roof), must be discharged into the ground at a depth of no less than 2 thickness of the humus layer. Conclusion: a regular 200-liter barrel with a height of 850 mm will help us out. A fertile layer of 40 cm is not a dacha, it is Eldorado. A smaller plastic barrel will also work, as long as its volume is not less than a one-time discharge (let’s take the tank’s capacity for this), and its height is at least 2 times the thickness of humus.

Note: if you feel sorry for the barrel, the shell of the pit can be made from old tires. Only then will it be necessary to periodically add bleach to the pit; in the resulting side cavities, with frequent use, wastewater will stagnate.

From theory to practice

Arrange a compact and cheap cesspool for a shower from a barrel it is not difficult. First, we dig a pit according to the diagram in Fig. to a depth equal to the height of the barrel. The distance from the siphon spout to the neck of the barrel is not critical; a plastic corrugated hose will reach. Then we cut off the bottom and the lid with the neck from the barrel. The bottom will no longer be needed, and we cut off a segment from the lid to create an inspection hatch; it will need a tight lid.

We install the barrel in the pit and fill it back with soil. Next is the filter. Pour fine crushed stone into the cesspool in a layer of 15-20 cm. In a bucket of water, stir 1-1.5 kg of any clay until it becomes “milk”, and pour the backfill evenly in a thin stream until the clay milk covers it. After a day or two, when the water has gone and the clay has dried, we stir up the filter layer, often piercing it thickly with a pointed reinforcement. All that remains is to weld the lid, and after building the shower, insert the siphon spout into the neck and seal it with construction foam. You can insert a tee into the neck and supply drainage from the kitchen here; in terms of bio-chemistry and simple chemistry, it is more similar to a shower than to a toilet.

Note: If there is construction going on nearby and the concrete mixer is free, you can mix porous concrete, from which filters are made when building wells. Then backfill with clay impregnation is not needed - 2-3 buckets of the porous mixture are simply dumped into a cesspool and leveled.

Odor is excluded from such a cesspool by design. It is convenient to inspect and, if necessary, clean it, and the cost of labor and money is nothing at all; The useful area, except for that under the shower, is not withdrawn from economic use. At the author of the article’s dacha, a shower cesspool made from a barrel has been working properly for almost 20 years. There was no need to clean it even once (they go to the dacha on weekends and spend their holidays there). The inside of the barrel was overgrown with a dense layer of some chemical compounds, but was not rusted through. Fruits from plants in the immediate vicinity of the pit were repeatedly submitted for analysis to the sanitary station, which invariably showed their complete suitability for food. For testing, they drilled a water well 5 m from the pit - the water turned out to be good.

More about shower and toilet

A shower with a cesspool of this type can be placed in a block with a toilet. For the latter, by the way, if the dacha is summer, it is not at all necessary to make a rather complex and expensive septic tank, not to mention an antediluvian two-cube pit. You can do without a toilet cesspool altogether by installing a powder closet. More precisely, a powder toilet, because... This is a French idea. Sortie in French exit; toilet, respectively - latrine. The powder closet can only be used in the warm season, but it was the study of the processes in it that led to the invention of dry closets. However, it's about again country toilets, which require separate analysis.

What will the shower be like?

Now that we know how much work is needed to arrange a shower area, and in what cases we can do without it, it’s time to decide - what kind of shower will we make? Or buy? In general, the choice is:

• Compact portable shower.
• Street extension to the house.
• Garden cabin.
• Capital shower.
• Household complex in shower.
• Shower room in the house.

Compact - not compact

You don’t have to take a portable shower with you anywhere and everywhere. Nobody bothers you to use it constantly in one place. In the same way, no one bothers you to fill the waterskin hot water, heated over a fire or in a stove, immediately before washing. The only additional thing required is fencing.

Shower enclosures for mobile showers are sold complete with the shower itself or as an option. But, frankly speaking, it’s not worth the candle - it’s easier to make a shower fence yourself. The simplest, but very convenient option is a semicircular guide attached to the wall of the house, see figure, and a curtain. It is not necessary to bend a stainless steel pipe; you can get by with a propylene water pipe, put on the same pins made of reinforcing bars. Then the fence will be completely collapsible. It is better to sew the curtain from colored tarpaulin (propylene is also preferable); why - stated above.

Cabin on the street

Users of “permanent” showers sooner or later come to the conclusion that the waterskin needs to be replaced with a tank: 6-12 liters is not enough for one, but definitely not enough for a family. Now we have an outdoor shower stall, and the problem of drainage has arisen. This is usually solved by draining water down a slope or gutter into a flower bed, on the assumption that the flowers are not eaten. But from the point of view of caring for nature, this is, of course, wrong. And the soil, if the shower is used frequently, may turn sour, and then the entire flowerbed will disappear. It’s better to choose the time, at the lower edge of the drainage slope (usually the blind area of ​​a house) to mold a catch-socket out of cement, and bury a 40-mm socket in the ground PVC sewer pipe to the sewer pit. For the one described above, one 3-m pipe is enough; its slope needs to be 4-10 cm/m.

If you want to quickly and easily replace the curtain with something more impressive, then the same arched pipe on the wall will help out. How a simple rigid-sheathed booth is made from a booth with a curtain is shown schematically in Fig. Within the simplified blind area of ​​the building, which is only 60 cm wide, a fairly comfortable (45 cm aisles, semicircular washing area 60x120 cm in plan) and completely invisible booth is obtained. Sheathing and fence material can be any material that is sufficiently rigid and allows some bending. Polycarbonate is best; we will talk about it later. In this case, the fence of the labyrinthine entrance can be curved, resulting in a quite elegant extension.

Shower in the garden

However, there is no need to rush to dig and build: there is another simple option - a garden shower. This is a cabin on a light frame with soft opaque lining, see fig. Its highlight is that the cabin is placed in a new place on each visit, or rearranged once a week. It is enough to move it 2-3 m away from the previous one, and the local ecology will fully tolerate the increased flow.

Capital

A capital shower differs from a simple cabin not only in that it stands on a foundation; as we will see below, it may not exist. A major shower must have a changing room, although exhibitionism in certain circles is now, if not the norm, then certainly fashionable. However, when washing, there is no need to demonstrate swimsuit models with graceful forms or a sculpted torso, as shown in advertising photographs.

Washing completely without clothes is necessary primarily for sanitary and hygienic reasons. The reason is dust in the fabric and hems of clothing. Having become limp, and even in contact with a wet body, it can cause skin diseases exactly in those places where you least want them. According to the rules of field work in countries that widely use seasonal migrant agricultural workers, i.e. Unaccustomed to digging in the ground, after a shift, after washing, you must definitely put on clean underwear. Outerwear You can leave it working, but only fresh linen. In any case, it is uncivilized to be like the ancient nomads, for whom dirt up to a centimeter thick is not yet dirt, and then it falls off on its own.

How a shower with a changing room should be arranged is shown in Fig. dimensions - in cm. Clothes are protected from splashes by a curtain, and shoes are protected from getting wet by a grille, wooden or made of propylene pipes with self-tapping screws, see below. In this case, a curtain made of film is more suitable - a tarpaulin, not blown by the wind, will take a long time to dry, and if it is not propylene, but cotton, it can resist.

Note: for people of average height and build, so that when bending over dropped soap they don’t knock down the door or break the walls with their fifth point, the dimensions of the washing room in plan can be reduced to 80x100 cm. Then the entrance, where the curtain hangs, will be on the larger side.

All in one

The change house at the dacha does not play the same role as at construction sites and field work. In any case, the cesspool must be located as far from housing as the conditions on the site allow. And having a meal, once you’ve escaped the bustle of the city, is more pleasant and healthier in the open air. Therefore, a dacha cabin often includes a kitchen with a veranda along with a shower and toilet.

The ultimate, so to speak, design diagrams for country cabins are shown in Fig. The left one is the simplest, 1.8 x 1 m, on concrete blocks without a foundation. Toilet – powder closet or bio; the dressing room can be used as a shelter in case of bad weather. Purpose – temporary, for the period of construction of the house.

On the right is a permanent change house. The foundation is slab, see above. The walls are made of aerated concrete 75 mm + 12 mm on each side for finishing. The roof is a flat slate slate. If there are a lot of people, a large shower can also be used as a refuge; The size of the kitchen allows you to build or install a wood stove. It can be built, with the average skill of a craftsman and the presence of a helper, over a weekend, not counting the technological break for gaining concrete strength and time for finishing work.

Note, joke: Don’t rush to build something like this, otherwise who knows when you’ll get around to a real house.

In the house

A country shower in a house, since it is in a residential area, must meet all sanitation and hygiene requirements. This is a separate topic; we will discuss some features in relation to the dacha further along the course of the presentation.

Floor, tray, grate

Floor

The floor in the country shower is made of wood; capital, as in a big house, is too labor-intensive and expensive. In a cabin measuring up to 1.5 x 1.5 m, if a tongue-and-groove board is used for the flooring, logs are not needed. If the cabin is not square, cut the decking boards to the size of the short side, this will be stronger.

To prevent the wood from rotting from moisture, it, of course, needs to be treated. Nowadays, this can be done without complex and time-consuming operations such as scalding with bitumen, two-layer painting with zinc oil or titanium white, etc. Preparation of boards for the cabin floor is reduced, after sawing to size, to double treatment with a water-polymer emulsion; The second treatment can be done an hour after the first.

Then - drying. At temperatures above 22 in the shade and drying in direct line sunlight the boards will be ready for further processing by the evening if they were processed in the morning; at 15 degrees and drying in the shade - by the next morning.

After drying, the wood is impregnated with any wood biocide. You just need to read on the packaging to see if the product is intended for impregnation under pressure; this is not suitable. It is advisable to carry out impregnation in the sun in warm weather, allowing the boards to warm up for an hour or two.

3-4 hours after impregnation, you can apply acrylic varnish in 2 layers. The first one will dry out in the evening, then you can varnish it a second time. The next morning the floor can be laid. Thus, if you choose a nice day, you can finish a floor that will last at least 10 years in a weekend, with some time left over.

Pallet

Shower trays, if you don't already know, come in low and high varieties. The first ones fit into a cutout or recess in the floor, and the second ones are actually a standing bathtub: they are installed on legs and equipped with a screen. Both come in sizes from 800x800 to 1580x1580 mm, straight and angular, round or faceted, as well as round, oval and complex shapes. Made from acrylic or enameled sheet steel. The former are more expensive and more durable; the latter are cheaper.

For a cottage with a separate shower on the premises, a straight, low shower tray is needed, see figure on the right. The most popular size and material is steel 1000x1000 mm. Its advantages:

• Easy installation and sealing: a sausage of construction foam is applied along the contour of the cutout and a pallet is placed immediately before it hardens; the squeezed-out excess foam is removed.
• Saving wood and work: by making the cabin support frame (see below) the inside width of the outer size of the pallet bath, we get rid of most of the flooring. It is enough to cover the top of the frame with scraps of boards so that the pallet does not end up in the hole.
• Cheap: with a relatively low intensity of use of a country shower, a steel tray with careful use will last at least 15 years.
• Durability in dacha conditions: acrylic pallets in dachas do not withstand the design service life, because... They are afraid of abrasive wear by sand, which cannot be avoided outside the city.

Note: if there is a shower with a dressing room, you can take a tray 800x1000, see above. If there are people at the dacha with above average corpulence, then the best would be a 1200x1200 pallet

A country shower in a house requires a high tray. The reason is that the cutout will weaken the floor, unless it is formed according to the complete pattern. And even then, the slotting and concrete work will take a lot of time and effort, plus cutting a channel for the sewer pipe. If the house has not yet been built, there is also no need to include a low pallet in a project with a wooden floor: the installation step of the joists turns out to be too large for a flooring of this size.

It is more profitable to purchase a high tray complete with a cabin and screen. Then it is better to take a corner shower: a shower corner of the same overall dimensions takes up small room much less usable area and it turns out to be even more convenient than a direct shower.

As for installation, it is advisable to do it yourself. Firstly, it will be too expensive for the master to travel out of town, he wastes a day, and in a day he can install up to 3 cabins, if not more. Secondly, the water supply and drainage at the dacha are almost always non-standard, which will be even more expensive. Therefore, how to install a shower cabin with a high tray yourself, see the video below.

Video: self-assembly and installation of a shower cabin

And the following is about the subtleties of the corners:

In addition, before purchasing, you will need to read the original instructions, because The installation methods for showers from different manufacturers are somewhat different.

Lattice

In the locker room, a grate under your feet is a must to prevent your shoes from getting wet. In a washing room with a low tray, a grate above it is highly desirable, because... due to the lack of a threshold, the danger of slipping and falling when entering the pallet is increased.

Usually the lattice is made of wood from slats from 30x30 to boards 100x40. The preparation of wood is the same as for the floor, but it is advisable to cover the grate instead of varnishing, if funds allow, with an acrylic compound for repairing bathtubs, then its resistance to wear by shoe soles will increase significantly. And for the floor, coating with a compound will not be superfluous; In this case, the pan may not be sealed with foam; the thick mixture will close the gap.

The best, and if you take into account the prices for varnish, even cheaper, grille is obtained from PP pipes assembled with self-tapping screws. Pipes need 1/2″; installation step – 1.5 outer diameter. The pitch of the crossbars from the same pipe is 300-400 mm. There is little trick: after assembling the grate, a little polyurethane foam is poured into all gaping ends so that the grate inside does not become sour from dampness.

Tank

A shower tank for a dacha must be equipped with a sanitary drainage with a shut-off valve, indicated in brown in Fig. It is placed at the lowest point of the vessel, and the source is made flush with the bottom. Before a long break in use (at least a week), the tank is completely emptied through drainage. It is advisable to drain the sediment regularly, with the same frequency, even with constant use. Please note that in a dacha, the likelihood of spores and eggs of unwanted microorganisms getting into the tank is many times higher - orders of magnitude higher than in a city apartment. The author knows of a case where... crucian carp snouts were found in the shower tank. They obviously ate mosquito larvae that swarmed there.

The second condition is that the selection pipe must be placed higher so that it sprays from the watering can. clean water, not suck. Finally, if the water is heated in the tank, its thermosiphon circulation must also occur, otherwise most of the heater’s power will go to waste. That is, the hot water supply pipe should be as high as possible.

If the tank is powered from a water supply system, then it requires a float valve and an overflow with a clearing area of ​​at least 2 times that of the supply pipe. There needs to be enough clearance above the float so that it does not rest against the tank lid, completely blocking the water supply. For such a case, a tank diagram with recommended dimensions is shown on the left in Fig.

For a manually filled tank, the pipe layout changes, because... The water level in it decreases during use. Its diagram is shown on the right in Fig. An indispensable condition is that the hot water supply should be located at least a little (5-7 mm at least) above the source of the extraction, and the mouth of the supply pipe should be located further away from the source of the outlet; Selective is located approximately in the middle between them. It is advisable to drain the sediment from such a tank immediately after each emptying so that the sediment does not clog the water heater.

What is it made of?

Ready-made tanks for showers different sizes, containers fully equipped with fittings are available in a wide range. But, since our task is to implement everything entirely with our own hands, then we will see how to make the tank ourselves.

The most common tanks for country showers are made from barrels laid on their sides; then it is convenient to place a drainage system, and the loss of water into sediment becomes minimal. In this case, a wide filling and inspection hatch is cut out of a 200-liter steel barrel and through it, after welding the pipes, the yacht container is painted from the inside acrylic enamel or the same compound for repairing bathtubs. The outdated long-term method is to prime with a rust primer and paint with red lead and oil.

Plastic barrels do not require preparation from the inside, but the problem of sealing the joints arises: almost nothing sticks to polyethylene and polypropylene, but connecting by soldering water pipes, it is forbidden. Fortunately, plastic barrels are produced with wide necks, through which it is possible to install threaded fittings M12-M16 with a flange and a rubber gasket, and on the outside - also with a gasket and washer; everything is tightened with a nut. To prevent the pipe from being torn out by thermal deformations, the diameter of the flange and washer must be from 3 outer diameters of the fitting, but not less than 40 mm.

Note: the alternative method - sealing with silicone - does not justify itself; after 2-3 seasons the joints begin to leak.

About a tank from an old washing machine

It's no secret that many country showers have tanks from unusable old washing machines. Their capacity is small, for 2-3 washes quickly, but otherwise they are very good: they do not rust, drainage is automatically obtained from the previous drain pipe, and the input and output of the rest is easy to carry out through the opening for the activator, there is already a stamping for the gasket and holes for fasteners By covering such a tank with glass on silicone (preferably acrylic), we will obtain effective solar heating of water (see below), because, repeatedly reflected from the internal shiny walls, the radiation of the Sun will be almost completely absorbed by the water.

Cabin

Grillage

The supporting frame of the cabin is most often made of wood; under dacha conditions, it loses strength more slowly than a thin-walled (1.5-2.5 mm) metal profile. The channel, of course, will last longer, but will cost more. It is more suitable for welded structures, see above.

As for wood, timber of 100x100 or even 60x60 is suitable for a light cabin, and 150x150 for heavy-duty showers. Wood processing is generally the same as for flooring, but instead of varnishing, it is impregnated twice or thrice with heated bitumen mastic. In combination with a water-polymer emulsion, this will ensure durability of at least 12 years; EPE, penetrating deeply into the pores of wood, makes them unsuitable for the germination of mold spores.

How high?

The rise of the grillage above the ground, and the corresponding protrusion of the foundation piles, is calculated as the sum of 200-250 mm for ventilation, plus the depth of the tray, plus the technological height of the siphon and another 50-70 mm of reserve. So, for a low pallet this will be 320-450 mm, i.e. 2-3 more steps are needed at the entrance.

Frame

A wooden shower is assembled, just like - on load-bearing poles, only the problems of the roof disappear: there is either no roof at all, or it is simply sloping. The wall frames are reinforced with diagonal braces, one per side, from a 100x40 board or the same board, spread in half lengthwise, i.e. 50x40, and installed flat. The latter option saves material, but takes up space inside the cabin.

A metal frame usually uses a corrugated pipe from 25x25x1.5 to 40x40x2. The profile frame is assembled by welding, primed and painted. Thin-walled galvanized profiles are cheaper and easier to assemble - using self-tapping screws - but they do not last long; this material is not intended for external use at all.

The best material for a shower frame is 1/2″ and 3/4″ propylene water pipes. The assembly diagram is the same as for wood: frame and diagonal. In this case, there is no need to solder the plastic; it is enough to select standard connectors so that the pipe fits into them more tightly, and assemble them with self-tapping screws. Phosphated (black) ones hold up better in the shower. The diameter of the screws is 4.2 mm; length - 1-1.5 mm shorter than the outer diameter of the connector, so that the tip does not stick out or get scratched.

Sheathing

In general, any sheet metal is suitable for covering a shower. finishing materials external use: corrugated sheeting, plastic lining, siding, polycarbonate, top row in rice; they can be attached to any frame either with standard fasteners, or, if the frame is propylene, with brackets and clamps.

Of all the cladding materials, polycarbonate stands out. Its main advantage is that the polycarbonate shower is self-heating. The peculiarities of the interaction of cellular polycarbonate with sunlight are such that an increased energy density of infrared (thermal, IR) radiation is created inside the cabin. Simply put, a kind of warm cocoon appears, even if the shower is without a roof and with a wide ventilation gap below. Cellular polycarbonate and was originally developed for covering greenhouses and greenhouses.

The shower cabin is lined on all sides, cramped, i.e. Its glazing area is large relative to its volume, and tomatoes are not grown in it in winter. Therefore, the cheapest sheet of structure 2R with a thickness of 4 mm from the most alternative manufacturer is suitable for covering the shower. There is no need to be afraid of peeking: milky, non-translucent polycarbonate is produced specifically for showers.

The second important factor is that the honeycomb sheet, if oriented vertically with internal channels and bent, acquires the properties of a prestressed structure (PSS): high strength and rigidity. That is, a very durable and lightweight round cabin can be made on a frame from just 2 hoops bent from PP pipe, upper and lower. The hoops will also be pre-stressed and will add a fair amount of overall strength.

Finally, by tightly wrapping the sheet to a curved template and heating it for 20-30 hours to 70-80 degrees, the bend of the sheet can be fixed. This technique is often used by designers; in particular for original showers without frame, see fig. right.

Good old wood is also widely used for showers, pre-treated as for flooring, or even raw, at least in the form of wattle, the bottom row in Fig. higher. Its advantages are accessibility, ease of processing, and for large showers under the roof - wood retains heat well. Heat loss through wooden cladding made of forty-size boards is less than through brick cladding made of half a brick.

Note: It is undesirable to use layered and modified wood materials - plywood, fiberboard, chipboard, MDF - for shower cladding; they delaminate.

Armature

What distinguishes a garden garden shower from a regular shower is, first of all, the shower head (spout, diffuser): its design includes an adjusting valve, see fig. If the dacha has separate hot water, then this is not suitable - there are no diffusers with a standard two-way valve on sale. However, it is not difficult to make a watering can with a valve yourself; it does not have any fundamental features. Other shut-off valves are any ordinary ones, but it is easier and cheaper to make pipelines flexible, from a reinforced garden hose.

Heating and warming

Now let’s finally understand what a warm shower is. In capital showers, as mentioned above, heating the washing area will ensure that the return flow from the tank to the water heater passes through the heating register, see fig. For constant heating of residential premises, this scheme is a complete heresy, but in the shower it is quite workable without loss of overall efficiency.

The cheapest and fastest water heating is provided by a low-power flow-through gas boiler or, if bottled gas, an electric boiler. Let's leave both of them, because... it is impossible to make them in accordance with safety requirements outside industrial conditions: a heating element with grounding is only the basis, you also need automatic temperature control, emergency protection against boiling, emptying, overheating of the heating element due to scale fouling or sediment entrainment, and some other necessary little things.

Without heat exchanger

The easiest way, which summer residents have been using since time immemorial, is to heat the water with the Sun. But the well-known tank covered in bitumen is not the best solution; the fact is that bitumen or simple black (non-selective) paint is black only in visible light, but reflects IR quite well.

2 methods of primitive solar water heating are shown in Fig. right. The first (left position) uses the fact that water itself actively absorbs IR and ultraviolet (UV) radiation. The latter carries a lot of energy, but you need a well-transmitting UV tank, i.e. expensive acrylic. In the other, which is on the right pos. The hose’s own heat capacity is used: when the water flows, it gives off the accumulated heat to it, so it is possible to obtain more warm water than was originally in the volume of the pipe.

With register and potty

Direct heating of water is bad because it depends on the weather and time of year: clouds have rolled in - the water is cold, and you can only get hot water in the very heat, when a little warm is enough. To heat water well, not only in warm weather and not only in clear weather, a water heater for a shower must, firstly, somehow collect solar radiation, the energy density of which is relatively low, and transfer it to water, the heat capacity of which is relatively high. An indispensable condition in order to “sew together” these requirements is thermosiphon or forced circulation of water in the system, i.e. a heat exchanger is needed, but how to heat it is a second matter.

A simple heat exchange register is a coil (on the left in the figure) or a U-shaped elbow made of copper or aluminum thin-walled tube. It can be laid flat with a slope, in the middle there; then the hot side must be raised above the cold side by no less than the internal diameter of the tube, otherwise internal convection, boiling and rupture may develop even with a relatively small influx of energy.

In some cases, it is more convenient to use a heat exchanger in the form of a sealed vessel, on the right in Fig. The principle of “thermosiphony” is observed here in that the outlet (hot) pipe is located as high as possible from the cold one. In this case, complete sealing is needed, without the slightest leak!

From the stove

A water heating register can be built into a country heating and cooking stove, but this is already a question of the design of the stoves, and where the hot water goes afterwards, the stove, by and large, doesn’t care. A solar oven looks much more interesting in terms of heating water for showers. In our latitudes it is not suitable for cooking, but a shower will provide hot water and the simplest (see figure) in spring and autumn in cloudy weather.

The pattern of such a stove is shown in the following. rice. Material – any foil, even cardboard. Please note that the reflector must be metal; it reflects the entire spectrum of radiation, while household mirrors reflect only the visible part. For IR clouds are much more transparent, while UV clouds carry a lot of energy even in small quantities.

The diagram of a stationary solar oven, more complicated, but much more efficient, is shown in the following. rice. The reflector is assembled from pieces (can be scraps) of galvanized silicone. The reflector fragments are installed one by one, adjusting (adjusting) so that the light spot lies on the bottom of the heated vessel; The already installed and adjusted mirrors are still covered with something. For this stove and the one described before it, a compact heat exchanger is needed; it is installed instead of cooking utensils.

Panels

Solar panels are not that complicated and do not require any adjustment. These are, strictly speaking, flat boxes or other containers blackened from the inside and glazed, in which a strong greenhouse effect is created; A coil is installed inside such a mini-greenhouse, the diagram on the left in Fig. Modern solar panels use truly space-age technologies, and some models in winter, on a cloudy day at -20 outside, release water into the system with a temperature of +70.

We don’t need such super-efficiency; we just need to heat 50-100 liters of water from +15 to +40 in 2-4 hours. Even the simplest design like those shown in the following can cope with this task. poses of the same fig. And in Fig. below (on the top position - with an installation diagram and an option for using it for heating a house) - drawings of homemade solar panels, comparable in effectiveness to individual industrial designs. The first panel is completely homemade; the heat exchanger is soldered from a copper tube. In the one below, it was used with a radiator from an old, unusable refrigerator; The dimensions of the box are adjusted to fit the cash.

And in the dark?

If the kitchen at the dacha is gasified, no matter from the main line or from a cylinder, then you can heat water for the shower for free at any time of the year in any weather, day or night. How? Due to waste heat (essentially its own heat loss) from the gas stove. To do this, a copper coil from a 6-10 mm tube is used to circle the burners, as shown in Fig. This method was invented back in Stalin’s times, when people heard that somewhere at the top, a wonder had appeared - hot water in the tap.

To tilt the heat exchanger, pieces of soft wire are wound around its hot tube, and their whiskers are used either as legs or as hooks. Remember: the heating is intense, without tilting the coil will boil and burst instantly! It is also necessary to maintain other sizes so as not to burn or overdry. flexible hoses connecting the coil to the tank. What else you need to remember is that the slope of the hot tube should be greater than that of the cold one, and the coil heats up well only if the burning burners are occupied by cooking utensils. That is, there is no point in burning gas idle; you need to heat the water during cooking. As a rule, within an hour of preparing dinner, a 50-liter tank heats up to 40-45 degrees.

In conclusion

Finally, let’s mention one curiosity – the supposedly hydromassage shower. In Fig. the simplest model is shown on the right (the price, by the way, is not simple - about 300 euros), but installations with 6 and even 10 diffusers are produced, loudly called nozzles in advertising brochures.

Such perfumes are just a tribute to fashion, if not the fabrications of marketers in a consumer society; simply - wiring. For real hydromassage, it is necessary to reduce muscle tone under conditions of hydro-weightlessness, which cannot happen without a bath with water.

The shower is one of the most useful and enjoyable inventions of civilization. City dwellers, spoiled comfortable conditions apartments, it’s difficult to spend even a few days at the dacha without a shower. Therefore, a summer shower in the country has become an integral element of any suburban area. With its help, it is easy to remain “civilized” even in a very “wild” country house.

Of course, most owners of large country houses and cottages can afford to equip a separate bathroom with a shower or bath. But what about the owners of small houses who want to save money or in the absence of running water and electricity on the site? An excellent solution There will be a summer shower in the country, which will allow you to cool off on a hot day.

Today in stores you can find a wide variety of ready-made summer shower cabins for the dacha. They usually have a similar design - a metal frame covered with tarpaulin or polyethylene and a water tank on the roof. Some models may have an adjacent changing room, automatic water heating, etc. On average, prices for simple models start from 10,000 rubles. Perhaps this is the easiest way to bring a piece of civilization to your summer cottage.

If you want to save money or realize your creative ideas, then build do-it-yourself summer shower at the dacha. Depending on your wishes and capabilities, you can build either a simple or complex shower option. For the most basic shower, you will need to build an enclosed area. For example, digging several wedges into the ground and covering them with opaque film, tarpaulin or fabric.

The source of water will be a tank with a built-in watering can. The water tank can be hung on any horizontal crossbar or tree branch, the main thing is to correctly calculate the load. Water is supplied independently by adding hot or cold water to the tank. However, in summer, water tanks themselves heat up well in the sun. If it is not possible to hang the tank from a crossbar, purchase a small pump. Today you can buy shower pumps with telling names “Step”, “Toptun”, which work and pump water from the container while you trample them.

If you want to build a more beautiful and durable summer shower in your country house, then you can do shower cabin made of wood. Typically, a homemade wooden shower is superior to purchased ones in many respects. They are sheathed with boards or clapboards and are highly durable. They can also be insulated, which allows you to use the shower in cool weather.

How to build a summer shower in the country

The construction of a summer wooden shower in the country should be approached more thoroughly.

1. To begin, choose a location. It is best to place it away from the house, as this is a zone high humidity which will attract flies and insects. If you plan to heat water in the sun, choose an open, sunny area. Consider the water supply and drainage system. Usually the drainage is arranged in a ditch outside the site.
2. First, a small hole is dug, which is lined with roofing felt or film, or concreted. It turns out to be a kind of shower tray, which should have a gutter for draining water.
3. Then a frame and timber dressing are installed, after which it is sheathed with wooden boards treated with drying oil to protect against rotting. A window is made in the wall for ventilation and lighting.
4. A barrel painted black is installed on the roof of the summer shower to quickly heat the water by the sun's rays. The tank is equipped with a pipe, a watering can and a valve.

You can build a summer shower in your country house from almost any available materials: slate, plywood, wood, tarpaulin, opaque plastic or film, metal pipes. It all depends on your imagination and wishes.

Summer shower in the country - photos and ideas

With my own hands. Let's look at the simplest and most accessible ways to construct such a necessary building.

We often spend our summers at the dacha to be closer to nature for some time, away from noisy highways and the speed of the metropolis. But the holiday will not be entirely pleasant if we do not have the opportunity to take an invigorating shower, which allows us to wash away dirt and dust, and also makes us fresh and clean on a hot summer day.

Summer shower building it yourself is not so difficult, despite the fact that there are a lot of options for its execution, some of which are quite simple and do not require serious investments, both time and money. So let's get started.

Ready-made building for a summer residence

If you are too busy a person, or too lazy to build a shower and you have in cash, then you can simply buy a finished product. Or order a frame from a craftsman and install the tank yourself. And that’s it, you can use this wonderful device!

If warm water is enough for you, you don’t have to use electric heating devices for this. In hot weather, it is enough to install a container of the required volume from available material above the booth, paint it black so that there is better heating by the sun's rays.

The tank will heat up more quickly if you place it in a transparent box made of glass or plastic. Such a structure will allow you to provide yourself with warm water even in cool weather, the main thing is that the sun is not hidden behind clouds.

This option will be the simplest and most convenient for lazy people and money-lovers.

Open design

An outdoor summer shower built with your own hands is suitable for quickly washing away accumulated contaminants. This design is very simple and easy to assemble from scrap materials.

This open device will help strengthen the body and increase immunity.

It is best to make such a summer shower with your own hands near some wall, installing a supply pipe with a tap on it and. To protect yourself from prying eyes, you can attach a curtain. To do this, you need a pipe bent with an arc with loops for the curtain.

This is possible if your summer cottage has running water. If there is no water supply, you can attach a suitable container to the wall and you can take water procedures.

It is also necessary to protect the building wall and floor covering from the destructive process of water. You can line the wall with water-repellent, and put artificial stone or other material on the floor. Just the material should not be slippery, otherwise there may be a risk of injury.

If the constructed outdoor shower is located next to the developed site, then no equipment is needed - the water used will evaporate and be absorbed into the ground.

How to build a shower in your country house with your own hands?

To begin, select a suitable and empty place in your dacha to install a new building. If you rarely use the shower, the wastewater can be drained directly into the ground.

But in case of frequent washing, you need to think about diverting a large amount of water to a certain place. If there is a septic tank, then wastewater can be directed there, of course, if the volume of the tank allows.

After excavation work, you can make the frame of the summer shower with your own hands, which must be solid (strong), because it needs to withstand the weight of the tank. The frame can be made from:

• boards (bars) reinforced with metal corners;
• steel angles or pipes.

A metal structure will be more durable, but will require annual painting to eliminate the possibility of corrosion, while a wooden frame is much easier to complete.

Do-it-yourself summer shower - drawings for construction:

The material for the walls can be any available means:

• wooden lining;
• plastic panels;
• flat slate and much more.

Look at the photo of a DIY summer shower:

The inside of the cabin will become more beautiful and stronger if it is lined with plastic clapboard, the floor is made of boards in the form of a lattice, and the wooden material is treated to prevent splinters.

Consider the erosion of the soil under the shower over time. You can install a plastic or iron tray with ebb for the floor.

Or the simplest option is to pour a layer of crushed stone under the floor.

Look interesting video how to make a budget summer shower in the country:

P.S. As you can see, it is possible to build a shower for your dacha yourself and you don’t need to buy one expensive materials, you can use what is available.

It’s not difficult to make a shower cabin with your own hands for your dacha. It can be made either budget-friendly using improvised means, or expensive and complex. We will dwell in detail on the first option. Indeed, in the summer, for many owners summer cottage functionality is much more important than appearance.

Where to start?

First of all, you need to understand what you want to get in the end. What qualities, amenities and functionality should a shower stall for a summer cottage have? How many people will use the shower? The choice of tank capacity and the need for drainage depend on this.

An important factor is the characteristics of the landscape and soil of the site. If there is an elevation, it is better to make a shower there. This will save you from having to drain the water. It is advisable that the sun shines on this place all day. If you have automatic water supply, you can automatically fill the tank.

Installing an elevated shower stall

It’s also worth deciding. What material will you use to make the shower stall for your dacha? The frame is made of metal round or profile pipes. You can choose wooden blocks. Wall materials can be very varied. It all depends on your imagination and budget. Suitable for these purposes: tarpaulin or any thick fabric, plastic film, slate, wood, lining, metal sheets, brick, etc.

A summer shower cabin for a summer cottage with your own hands can be attached to a country house, made into a separate building or mobile. The latter option does not require a foundation, and if necessary, the structure can be disassembled to free up space. In this case, the shower is sheathed with light material.

Think in advance about how the water tank will be arranged. Do you want to make it heated or will you be satisfied with one in which the water is heated by the sun's rays. Draining the water is also important. The drainage system should be considered before construction begins.

Plan the dimensions of the shower stall for your dacha to be spacious. After all, you will need to put down bath accessories and put away your things. It must be at least 2 m in height, and the base must be at least 1x1 m.

Choose pipes of at least 20x30 mm, angle 45x45 mm. Tools you will need:

• welding machine;
• grinding machine.

Create a drawing of a future shower stall for your cottage. Be sure to include jumpers at the bottom and in the middle. To make it easier to attach floor boards, use a corner as the bottom jumpers. Make the upper stops also from a corner, because It is easier to attach the water tank on it. Their dimensions will depend on the tank capacity and its material. If the tank is metal, the stops must be such as to support its weight with water.

Depending on what material you choose for wall cladding, you need to think about the mounting locations. For plastic or metal profiles it is worth welding metal plates. If this soft materials, such as tarpaulin or rubberized fabric, they can be secured with strong synthetic thread directly to the pipes.

Upon completion of the design work, we proceed directly to assembly. You will need:

• 4 pipes 2-2.2 m long for vertical supports;
• 8 pipes for central and upper jumpers;
• 4 corners for the bottom;
• corners for stops under the tank.

If you plan to make opening doors, you will need 4 more pipes and 2 hinges. All parts are cut at an angle of 90°. Clean all edges for welding. How to make the structure more rigid? To strengthen it, you can weld metal corners at the corners of the frame or bolt them to the vertical posts.

When welding, never completely weld the seam on one side at once. First, “grab” a little from all sides and only then weld the joints thoroughly. Otherwise, the metal will be pulled in the direction of welding and it will be impossible to return it back.

It is better to take electrodes with a diameter of 3-4 mm. They are convenient for welding both thin metal 1 mm thick and thicker metal 4 mm. Select a current such that the metal melts. If you set it too high, you will burn through the walls of the pipes. At less, the electrode will stick to the metal. If you have never cooked or are not sure whether you can do everything correctly, contact a professional. After all, a poorly welded structure can fall under the weight of the tank and lead to injury.

Carry out welding work on a flat surface. It is important to maintain a 90° angle everywhere. Check this with a square. Upon completion of the work, clean all the seams with a grinder and a grinding disc, remove sharp corners and burrs.

For painting, choose a special paint for metal. To protect the frame from rust, prime it before painting, and then apply 2 layers of paint or enamel. If you are using profile pipes, use a roller. This will save time and reduce material consumption. After the enamel has dried, we move on to making a wooden floor and installing a shower tank.

Wood frame cabins

The overall design can be the same as for the cabin with metal frame. Bars measuring 50x50 mm and boards 50x100 mm are used as racks and lintels. Before installation, the wood is planed to level and remove roughness.

According to a pre-created drawing, boards of the required sizes are sawn off. The assembly of the structure begins on a level area. It is better to make connections halfway across the tree, but you can use metal plates for fastening. Attach the bars to them using self-tapping screws. If you have doors in your project, put them on hinges. But you can also use a regular curtain.

Provide a place to install a water container. If it is small, you can cover only half of the roof with boards. If the tank is large, it is worth installing a grill over the entire surface. The same lattice is made for the floor. Attach bathroom shelves and hooks.

Since the wood will be exposed to water, it must be treated with an antiseptic, drying oil or oil. It is advisable to make several layers, applying each subsequent one after the previous one has dried.

Some owners make a concrete foundation for their country shower cabins. Since an outdoor shower is still a temporary structure, you should think about whether it is really necessary to fill such a foundation for it. This process is labor-intensive, and if you decide to move or even want to remove the cabin from the site, you will have to break the foundation.

Paving slabs can be used as the base. But to avoid distortions, prepare this small area. Remove some soil, level it, lay geotextiles, crushed stone and level the surface with sand. Tiles are laid on top.

Drainage and shower tank

Some people install entire drainage and drainage systems under shower stalls. Some people don't do anything. How to understand what exactly you need? To do this, you need to take into account some factors. First of all, you need to understand that, most likely, the volume of the tank will not exceed 60-80 liters. And if only 2 people use the shower, then the volume will be significantly less. In the sun at the hottest time of the day, such a container will warm up for at least 2-3 hours. And during this time the water will go into the ground.

However, if you have clay soil and water does not drain well, or you are afraid that unpleasant odors, then you can organize a water drainage system or a drainage pit.

Let's look at how to drain into a drain. To do this, a hole is dug under the shower or at a short distance from the cabin. The choice depends on the available space on the site. The approximate dimensions are 50 cm in depth and 1 x 1 m in length and width. It is filled with coarse gravel. To save space, the lower half can be filled with construction waste, and the upper half with gravel. Everything is compacted and a shower stall is placed on top. Since the outdoor shower is placed in the sun, the soil will dry out faster.

If you are afraid that the walls of the pit may crumble, you can install it in car tires, and then cover everything with gravel or construction waste. Drainage made according to this model will last a very long time.

You can use plastic or metal container. The first is lightweight and cheap. Among the disadvantages, it is worth noting that most containers are blue or white. Hard to find black. To make the water heat up faster, it is better to use black coloring. In addition, the water drainage pipe is often not firmly fixed enough. Subsequently, this leads to the fact that it begins to dangle and leaks form at the joints.

Metal containers are much stronger than plastic. In addition, they are easily painted in any color. Disadvantages include heavy weight. Any metal container, for example, a washing machine tank, is suitable as a tank. It is easy to connect a pipe with a tap to it.

Filling the tank and operating the shower

The issue of filling the container with water is important. After all, doing it in buckets is far from the most convenient option. It is advisable to organize the water supply through a hose. To do automatic feeding water, use a float from cistern toilet. Set it to a response difference of approximately 20 liters, taking into account the tank capacity. Thanks to this, you can always maintain the required volume of water, and it will not overflow.

Not in all regions in the summer the sun heats up so much that the water heats up quickly. Electric heating can be a solution to this problem. This way you can have warm water regardless of the weather.

If the shower is attached directly to the container, you need to take care to securely fix it. After all, with prolonged use, the pipe will become loose. To avoid this, use a valve type faucet. In addition to the fact that it has an easier stroke of the rod, it is also more convenient for them to regulate the water pressure. At the same time, its surface does not oxidize.

At the end of the shower cabin's use, when cold weather sets in, it needs to be prepared for winter. It is advisable to remove all containers indoors. If this is not possible, drain them of water. All connecting elements are unscrewed and removed. Same thing with hoses.

Industrial cabins

There is now a wide range on the market finished products. It varies in price, materials of manufacture, you can choose any design, functionality and tank volume. Users of such designs speak very highly of this product. However, there are some disadvantages. If these are plastic booths, these disadvantages include the fragility of the material. Another is that the shower is mostly formulaic.

When you make it at the dacha with your own hands, you can take into account all your wishes and translate them into the project. Change the height, expand if necessary, increase the diameter of the drain hole, add decorative elements. This is difficult and sometimes impossible to do in industrial shower stalls.

And, perhaps, the main disadvantage is the high cost compared to a do-it-yourself shower. After all, a simple booth can be made from scrap materials. And it may happen that you only spend your time on production.

We have discussed in detail how to build a shower stall with your own hands. It's not difficult to do this. You just need to think through everything carefully, take into account the wishes and features of the site.

Video instructions