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Instant Hot Water for RV showers is luxurious

| Updated Jan 4, 2020

True confession time. In our previous Class B campervan RVs, we very seldom used the wet showers than came with them. For one, the showers got the whole bathroom wet, which was a pain to dry off. For another, they wasted a lot of water as you waited for the traditional RV water heaters to sufficiently warm the water. That quickly deleted the fresh water tank and conversely filled the grey water tank. 

Even taking those short little “Navy showers,” where you step in, get wet, turn off the water, lather up and then quickly rinse it off, taking showers in the RV – especially when boondocking – was just not worth it in our previous RVs. So we almost always skipped a day or so, postponing the showers until we got to a commercial campground or we could use one at an Anytime Fitness club. Besides being able to keep up with our fitness programs, that's another nice reason to belong to Anytime Fitness, or a similar chain. They have private, hot showers for their members.

But once we got our current RV (a 2019 Leisure Travel Van Unity FX) last March, things changed. It has a dry, self-contained bathroom shower. And it has a Truma AquaGo water heater. It provides instant and constant hot water. I mean turn on the shower and it is hot, instantly. No more wasted water. What a luxury!

Here's a video explaining it, along with a tour of the Truma headquarters in Elkhart, IN.

Truma has become pretty much the standard now in hot water heaters for many of the leading RV manufacturers. Truma makes several different models.

Even when we are at a campground, Jennifer and I now prefer taking showers in our RV instead of having to lug all our stuff to a campground showerhouse, which all too often out there on the road these days is of dubious cleanliness. When we are boondocking, we shower daily. And no more Navy showers. I usually shave in the shower. So they are not quick and in and out showers.

Instant Hot Water for RV showers is luxurious 1In the video above, shot on a boondocking trip over a long weekend, we had taken four nice long showers. Besides the water we used in the kitchen for cooking and washing dishes, our 37-gallon grey tank on the Unity was only 29% filled. We have showered as many as eight times (four for each of us) and still not gotten past 70% filled. On that boondocking trip (it lasted five days) those eight showers drew water from our 25 gallon fresh water tank. We still had about five gallons remaining when we broke camp.

Bottom line, if we took shorter showers trying to conserve water (which we did not do), I'm convinced we could easily get a full week of boondocking with hot showers. Instantly hot showers.

What a luxury!

Oh yeah, as a bonus to our visit to the Truma headquarters in Elkhart, we got to stay for free at the back of their property, where they have put in some flat concrete pads complete with electric and water hookups for their customers who happen to be passing through. It even backs up to a forested area.

 

 

Mike Wendland

Published on 2020-01-04

Mike Wendland is a multiple Emmy-award-winning Journalist, Podcaster, YouTuber, and Blogger, who has traveled with his wife, Jennifer, all over North America in an RV, sharing adventures and reviewing RV, Camping, Outdoor, Travel and Tech Gear for the past 12 years. They are leading industry experts in RV living and have written 18 travel books.

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