Rod Design Phase In a fit of technicalia, this discussion begins with arcane details, starting with the shower curtain rod scheme—perhaps my best brainstorm for ease of use, deployment, and stowage; always essential requirements given equipment overload (windsurfing).
Permanent Shower: Collapsible Rod Segments My requirements were: • rod and curtain stow in tub • rod requires no disassembly to stow or assembly to deploy • curtain lives on rod • easy handling. In other words, a rod/curtain assembly that you lift to use and drop to stow, in both directions quick and easy. I wanted this rod from the beginning in 2001 (when I installed this shower's predecessor, the portable indoor shower) and for some reason it took into my third RV ownership season for me to envision it's construction. 4 Ls slip into eachother. Made of 3/4 and 1" CPVC, it's light and strong. Here are it's 4 basic segments. The long nipple wound up unused.
Permanent Shower: Basic Rod Scheme Here's the rod assembled but not at full expansion. The 3/4" pipe slides very nicely inside the 1" pipe; just enough clearance but not sloppy. A far better fit than 3/4 and 1/2, not much heavier, and much stronger. The tee will hold the assembly that holds the shower wand, and ideally it must be centered when the rod is expanded. Thus we begin to see the intricate relationships among: • tub size for stowage • intended expanded size when clipped to ceiling • minimum overlap when expanded (you want some length of 3/4" pipe inserted into the 1" pipes for rigidity).
Permanent Shower: Rod Stowed Here's the rod in the design phase stowed in the tub. In the final product the curtains are attached (via key split rings) and the whole thing simply drops into the tub. To fit the tub into the dinette seat I had to cut off the flare, lowering the basin by about 2 ". Plenty of depth remains for the curtains. You can see from this pix why key splitrings are required to mount the curtains; some must ride on the right side of the Tee, and there's just enough room for them in that short space. Remember, the point is the curtain and rod stay as a unit for deployment and stowing. The notched corner clears the connections for a 12v outlet I'd installed previously in this area.
Permanent Shower: Rod Installed Oblique View I installed an eyebolt in each corner (trimmed to size at the end of nyloc nuts). I installed 4 chromed luggage D-rings into the roof, leaving clearance for an air conditioner's cowl should I ever opt to install one. To mount the rod I: • keep it collapsed • click in a corner caribiner • expand the rod diagonally and click in the diagonal corner • due to proportional scaling this has the happy effect of pre-positioning the other 2 corners so there's little risk of inadvertently pulling the rod apart (I built it leaving about 3" overlap among all segment sides—the maximum rod length afforded by the tub dimensions in which the collapsed rod stows). Click-click and all four corners are secure. To stow, unhook the showerhead, unclick, collapse and drop into the tub below. Done deal. I tried to mastermind this by measuring and drawing a rough. Ultimately I wound up just experimenting with the pieces and their lengths in the tub and cut to fit as I proceeded. Carefully consider ALL dimensions for both stowage and exactly where to mount the corners based on both tub orientation, ceiling clearances, and shower head positioning relative to your head and shoulders while standing in the tub…your mileage will vary!	Alert: how do you square up the hanging points in the middle of the roof? Work off the 4 dots the OEM put there mark where an AC hole would be cut. It's simple to do but take care. Use masking tape stuck to the roof and mark that so you don't mark the roof itself. Measure out from the dots to where the largest cowl's corners would be; try to clear them for the rod hanging points (depth is not a problem with the caribiners). Use the roof brace, if you have one, also to leverage dimensioning and finalize dimensions. • If you already have an airconditional installed making measurements as I've described here will be more challenging; and actually my instructions assume one is working solo. A second pair of hands might make measuring moot—you can temporarily lock in the rod span with some band clamps, have ahelper hold it up square, mark the D-ring hanging spots and then put a tape measure on them for final squaring.
Permanent Shower: Rod Installed Front View Here you see the soap etc. holder and 2 connected hoses. Nipples connect the pair of hoses and the shower wand holder to the CPVC fitting's elbow. There's a wing-shutooff between the hose and the wand for water-saving military-style showers (the 1.5-2 gal kind). The rod area expanded is about 28" deep by 31" wide (side to side when showering). Slightly tighter than the portable scheme but ample enough. Note: I've left the door slides installed in the door tracks (see the portable rod design pix) as an optional zone to hang the curtain when it needs to dry out and we need to use the dinette area. At night that can be just inside the camper door, out of the way of every useful part of the camper except ingress and egress. See the doorslide scheme here on the portable shower page. Pix 2 shows the one of the four chrome luggage D-rings I pop-riveted to the ceiling. When the shower is stowed this is the only evidence of the shower's presence in the camper.
Rod Completion This design makes for highly efficient use but comes at the potential price of more invloved construction. You must be willing to deal with the assembly intricacies the scheme requires, and play the assemble/disassemble game in case you screw up once, twice, three times along the way (guess who did that). But, if you read this page thoroughly, since I've already committed the major rod faux pas, you'll be alert to them up front.
Final Rod Segments Pix one shows the final rod segments: 4 Ls and the Tee. L straights and elbows are cemented together. The Tee gets pressed over an L leg and screwed in to prevent twisting or twistoff. The point was to be sure to have an out to remove split keyrings used as curtain hangers. This became necessary since this scheme absolutely requires that the rings be on the Ls and the Ls assembled, hanging from somewhere, prior to installing the curtain. Since each L straight measures ~10", once the rings are in it's impossible to slip any ring off either end. Pix two shows the straight from one L and the tee in the bench vise for drilling the screw hole. Be prepared to saw and/or grind down the screw to a very short length else it'll interfere with the 3/4" pipe that slides inside this 1" pipe. I cemented a short bit of 1" pipe in the open end of the Tee for a good fit to the 3/4" pipe at the Tee's extremity.
Installing the Curtain Pix one shows the rod hanging from the rafters off some nifty hooks I obtained from some home catalog; they bite into the joists and just hang there. I was able to closely approximate the dimensions the rod would assume in the popup. I used some band clamps temporarily to keep it pushed out to those dimensions since the best I could do with the red hooks was approximate the span of the D-rings installed in the popup. Pix two shows the curtain installed and hanging. I overlapped 2 grommets on each end, and pre-planned which opposing corners I wanted open — governed by which corner I wanted to reach out of to adjust water temperature at the sink faucet, arms-length from the tub's dinette seat location. Actually, with a 2 grommet overlap there's no slack for the rod sections to separate; they're nicely constrained. Another benefit of the 2 grommet overlap is that it's long enough to seal the showering enclosure without resorting to additional curtain work (sewing, velcro, snaps, clips). The ladder's legs poking out below the curtain evidence that it's easiest to mount the curtain to the rings already on the rod from inside. Use minimum 1.75" split rings.Smaller rings cannot be manipulated into the curtains' grommets after they're on the rod. Despite all my conceptual work I encountered at least one false start mounting the curtain due to losing track of which set of Ls inhabited which side of the scheme; began installing the rings/curtains and had to pull things apart and redo them. PITA. With a 2 grommet overlap it is still possible to just pull the L sections apart if you find you need to trim a touch off their length. Since I didn't draw plans for the project I'd neglected to allow clearance for the split rings when I manually sized the rod segments to the tub. I disovered this, of course, after cementing and asssembing the system. Rather than saw I used a pipe cutter to trim the ends down with the curtains in place.
Permanent Shower: Tub Installed Top View Here you see the tub snug. I shortened the corner brace and re-riveted it. The tub basin is very secure via the drainpipe connection, but I made sure there'd be no twisting by installing a single block into the floor which snugs inside the L-shaped leg sort of catty corner to the drain (the leg under the shortened seat brace). When stowing the curtain/rod I simply dip a corner under this short brace. I had to move the wall holding the water pump (barely visible to the left) over an inch. Of course its Pex plumbing goes right through the floor in the immediate vicinity. All tolerances are tight and your mileage may vary. The popup shower god must have really wanted me to have this installation! There are 3 electrical objects wired in this zone: the LP detector and a pair of 12v outlets I installed, so I engineered things for relatively easy tub removal should a maintenance need ever arise, hence the webbing handles, a holdover from the portable tub implementation. To remove the tub I'd have to drill out the rivets and remove the short corner brace. I installed a screen and bought a stopper, the former to keep my plumbing line clean and the latter to plug it when not in use since there's no P-trap. Note: the bench's corner brace is totally out of legs' way. I had considered facing the inside with stick-on foam tape but may not bother.
Permanent Shower: Tub Installed Side View This pix shows the tub through the door I installed previously into the dinette seat side. You can see the drain pipe, which has a collar that screws onto the tub bottom (and is likewise loosened; doing this and drilling out the brace rivets is all it takes to free the tub). There's still some good storage space under the tub which I hope to find just the right container for to hold little parts and hand tools for easy access from the street. In this pix I have yet to silicon caulk around the drainpipe — perhaps the most critical join to seal in the entire project, for one would not want the flooring to get wet and expand. Locating the spot to drill through the floor is not easy since it's hard to accurately spot the hole (at least with the laundry tub I've used). I dropped a long nail through the screen 4 times and found the center of the indents on the floor; inexact but functional. However I neglected to inspect the tub bottom; the threaded protrusion is angled! Fortunately there's enough flex in the pipe and its collar nut. Be sure to use the flanged gasket between the nut and the tub. If need be I'll just silicon the join. (all this assumes that cabinet space, or better the lack of same, is so tight as to preclude moving the tub—the very case in my instance.) To accurately spot the hole location, however, buy a 2nd pipe; they're cheap. With the tub placed half on and half off a workbench and the pipe screwed on you can mark and cut it off so it meets the workbech surface, a.k.a. the floor, like a 5th leg. Place it in the campter, trace around it to mark the hole, then remove and toss the pipe; it's done its job. I used a $5 1.5" hole bit and then slightly enlarged the hole with a drill and some sort of drill-file bit I had laying around. I kept the fit tight because a) I did not want to caulk/seal through the depth of the floor and b) for systemic rigidity. A week after doing this installation I returned to it to slip in the flanged clear plastic gasket between the flanged pipe (it slips in) and the collar-tub nipple connection. I found that the pipe had adapted, acquiring some memory of it's formerly slightly stressed position. At that time I also added about 5-6 turns of teflon tape to the tub threads and siliconed the join where the pipe enters the floor.
Permanent Shower: Plumbing This pix shows how lucky I am to just have cleared one of the roof lifter cables -- by millimeters (I ensured this beforehand by first eyeballing the area, then drilling a pilot hole according the tub's position, pushing a nail through it, then from underneath placing the hole bit by hand). The specter of the tub drain being directly over the cable had the potential to put the big kabosh on the plumbing since I did not want any of it above the floor for two reasons: the short span of pipe, tightly held by the floor hole, acts as a very secure tub anchor; and to maximize undertub and underseat storage space rather than use it for plumbing fittings. The first black fitting screws onto the white elbow and the pipe pressfits inside that. The balance of the pipe and elbows are cemented (the black elbow pair is connected with just enough pipe to make the join). I left the pressfit join to facilitate easy disassembly in the unlikely event of road damage requiring a repair—the modular approach. Although just about directly behind the axle I opted to keep the plumbing raised high as possible as far as possible by using hard piping and elbows. The white elbow is merely screwed on, and since there is some (small) risk of it loosening I a) kept the gap between the floor and the elbow small as possible and b) installed the metal strap; if the elbow were to loosen it could not drop down, hence the collar and gasket could not shimmy down the pipe.
Permanent Shower: Plumbing Streetside Detail This pix shows the last span. The pipe/elbows segment is held to the frame via a a custom-length band clamp with a foam pad inserted around the frame hole. At Geotex's suggestion I damped the pipe segment adjacent to the frame with a Fernco rubber fitting (required slitting the rubber before clamping it on). I trimmed down another Fernco rubber piece for a nicely curved mudflap hanging from the U-bolt since this drain terminus is directly behind the wheel. Pix 2 shows the terminus with its mudflap and the closure plug I use; I keep it tied to the U-bracket with parachute cord…I hate loose parts. I notched the edge of the metal circle that seals the pipe and the cord nests nicely in it when the plug is screwed on. I replaced the carriage bolt that came with the plug with an eyebolt to tie the cord to. When you tighten the wingnut a rubber washer expands to friction fit against the inside of the pipe (you wouldn't want a mouse to decompose in your shower plumbing now would you? — you do remember that tub screen wire-tied into the tub, right to keep that mouse out of your camper and all it's cushions (lunch to a mouse)…
Shower Shangri-La: Permanent Shower Deployed Here are various views of the final installation: • from outside the camper • from the front bunk • from the rear bunk (dinette table stowed and cushions atop it). Pix four shows how my previously designed privacy curtain can be unsnapped at its midpoint (glad I didn't sew that join!). Easy manipulation of the shower curtain on egress maintains privacy as one moves to the galley area to dry off and dress. Since the tub is elevated it's very easy to step out over the dinette seat back even with my custom-designed folding galley shelf in its up position. I've hemmed the curtains so they don't drag on the tub floor. I'll decide after use whether or not I'll make anchor points at the bottom and if so, their detailing (probably velcro at the top middle of each side of the tub). I may investigate smaller caribiners that lay closer to the ceiling and if need be use an inch longer nipple to connect the wand holder to the tee (see below).
Permanent Shower: Hidden Yep, as you've seen, there's a shower in that thar seat!
Permanent Shower: Final Curtain Stowed: NOT and GOT The toop pix shows the system stowed with my erroneous sizing (no clearance for the rings). Both the 1" and 3/4 rods required shortening by about 1/2–5/8" inches. This resultd in ~1" less overlap at full extension. This again underscores the dimensional interrelations making this scheme an extremely precise undertaking. Despite this oversight the rod stows just far enough into the tub, caribiners and all, so as not to interfere with the seat. But I don't want to stress the curtain or have to monkey around stowing this thing; the whole point is to simply drop it down into the tub, no muss or fuss! The second pix shows the final final done deal. The rod sits at an angle because of the extention hanging off the tee that holds the shower head. The extension is hidden below folds of shower curtain. Pix three is a more conventional view of the stowed system.
Permanent Shower: Alternate Drying Should I need to use the dinette before the curtain is dry I can revert to my portable curtain rod hangers which I've left on my door tracks. Here I've moved them by the door where the curtain is hanging out of the way between 2 cabinets and over the rubber mat where it could dry overnight. For details on the door tracks rod holder scheme see the portable shower page.
Permanent Shower: Tapping the Sink Faucet Here's how I manage the faucet end for all uses (note: pix one shows the former showerhead wand): At the bottom is a swivel spray adapter I like to use on the sink at all times. When showering, though, I want to set the water temperature at hookup time. To facilitate doing so I use a threaded adapter (middle left) that stays installed on the end of the faucet spout; it has both faucet and garden hose threads. I unscrew the swivel and attached the middle brass piece, a flow interrupt attachment. This has a floating collar so I can orient the control lever where I want it. I then adjust the water temperature. The middle right brass adapter lives on the end of the shower head hose, and it too has a floating collar so I can tighten it onto the bottom of the interrupt easily. Since both collars float it's easy to attach the wand hose without any hassle due to the curves/bends it takes on when coiled in storage at the bottom of the tub. The last two pix show the final parts installed and/or on display in context. Hard to discern but I've angled the wand holder. By standing in the tub on an angle one obtains more elbow room. If I commit to this position I'll twist the top of the soap holder to straighten it out relative to the curtain.

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