Water miser install for $960 - is it worth it?

[COBoondocker]

We just put a hold on a micro mini 1800 BH and asked for a price on the shower miser. For everything, including the install, the dealer quoted around $960. I know the device itself is closer to $50.

Does this seem like a reasonable install? I know that with the enclosed underbelly there is probably a great deal of labor involved.

Is the shower miser worth it in general? We will be mostly using this for dispersed camping/boondocking.

Thanks!

Lisa

[be happy]

First off I do not have one, in fact never heard of one. With that being said I looked at a youtube video on the unit. It seem that it attaches to the shower faucet then to the shower hose. I could be wrong but it sure seems to be a DIY project not a $900 project.

In my opinion even a good rv shower head Oxygenics being one https://oxygenics.com/products/bodyspa-rv/ is money well spent.

I hope someone who has the shower miser will come on, am interested to see how it goes.

Good Luck

[COBoondocker]

Thanks for your reply and the disclaimer

My dad had a similar response. Never had one but uses the oxygenics and suggested it highly! Maybe we'll start there?

It looks like the shower is pretty close to the water heater. From my dad's perspective, who knows that thing or two about RVs and fixing things, with the enclosed underbelly and the amount of work needed to get to the pipes, he thought that $1,000 sounded about right 🤷

My understanding is that the shower miser circulates the water internally - into and out of the gray water - so that when you turn it on you don't need to let it run for a few seconds to warm up.

I will be curious other people's responses too!

[Fred 2106DS]

Lisa,

We mostly dry camp and I installed both the Shower Miser and Sink Miser in our 2106DS. They are great for saving fresh water that would normally be sent to the gray water tank when waiting for hot water to reach the shower and bathroom sink. They circulate this unused fresh water back into your fresh water tank. So actuality, the Misers accomplish two things, they save fresh water and also save space in your gray water tank.

In our case it was well worth the money, but I did both installs myself.

Here's links to how I installed both the Shower Miser and Sink Miser.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Fred

[B.Rad]

The miser is interesting. We use a bucket until the water gets warm and recycle the water for dishes, fires, etc. Also installed a foot pedal valve between the shower faucet and shower head. This keeps hands free and saves a ton of water.

[Morich]

No experience with any recirculation pumps on RV but have installed several on home plumbing and it is a pretty basic thing to install.

One basic thought that needs a bit of correction is where the water comes and goes. It will NOT be recirculated from grey to fresh as that is a sure health hazard!
Simple idea is that there is a small pump and a "bypass" to let you turn on the pump, which takes water from the pipe which will become hot and feed it back into a cold pipe, letting that water which might go down the drain, instead go back to the fresh tank.

This has the advantage of letting you use slightly less fresh water, fill the grey tank slightly less soon but with the disadvantage of using more battery power to run the pump!

At home, we have a house that has the hot water heater installed "Texas style" which is basicly outside! Local code requires water heaters to have large vents for letting any gas leak go outside, It also makes your pipes freeze when it gets cold!
But the main problem is that also puts the water heater a long distance from the bathroom, so waiting for hot water does become a problem and it does run a lot of scarce water down the drain!
Enough irritation and waste that I installed a recirculation pump! I added a small Taco pump tied to a digital temp controller that we flip on when ready to shower. The pump take water from the hot side to the cold side until the temperature sensor finds the hot temperature high enough to shut down. I find 100 F to be fine for starting a shower. The little $15 dollar controller keeps the pump from running more than needed and gets me hot water when I want it!

The pump and setup you mention has the little gimmick color thing which is "cool" but not something I would pay extra to get!

Would I do it on an RV? Probably not as we are not prone to worry about running out of fresh, nor filling the grey too soon. We move more often, making those not a big issue.

For each user, I see the question being if the change to holding tank volumes is enough to offset the lost battery power to make it work?
The unit seems to have a gimmick that shows a change in color to let you know when the water has warmed but the install price seems really extreme if one were doing it DIY.

It will vary in each RV due to differences in where the pipes are placed but all it really needs is space near the shower to put a "bypass" between hot and cold pipes for the pump and 12VDC to power it.

We don't get the really good drawings for trailers but I would first look at what it would take to get access to the back of the shower where the pipes go to the faucet. That is often just a thin sheet of plywood which is stapled on. If we can remove that plywood, cut the tubes and place the pump for bypass there is no big issue needing to access the underside. I really would not want the pump added underneath the RV as that tends to be a freeze hazard as well as really difficult.

If one had a really long run for the piping, I might look at it differently but on shorter trailers, not for me. Too much trouble for too little gain, so I might look to other methods like a full water cutoff and navy showers to save the water use.

But that is one reason they make so many different RV! We ALL want something different!

[skitime]

I boondock 1-2 months a year in Silverton CO. I installed one shower miser and 2 sink misers to help extend my water usage. Definitely worth the expense but I did the installs myself. Not an easy job in a Class A Winnebago Journey with the kitchen in a full body slide out . The hardest part is running the return lines from 3 locations back to the the fresh water tank. I could combine the bathroom lines but again creating a kitchen return in a slide out was tricky but I could copy what the waterlines were doing in the slide out. All return lines connected to the water tank lines in the wet bay. Seems most RVers don't understand this device. You simply flip the lever when you need hot water. This sends the cold water back to the fresh water tank. When hot water finally arrives to the location the blue button quickly turns white to let you know you have hot water and flip the lever back. You now have hot water at the sink or shower head without filling your gray water and emptying you precious boondocking freshwater. I would do it again.

[Morich]

Originally Posted by skitime

I boondock 1-2 months a year in Silverton CO. I installed one shower miser and 2 sink misers to help extend my water usage. Definitely worth the expense but I did the installs myself. Not an easy job in a Class A Winnebago Journey with the kitchen in a full body slide out . The hardest part is running the return lines from 3 locations back to the the fresh water tank. I could combine the bathroom lines but again creating a kitchen return in a slide out was tricky but I could copy what the waterlines were doing in the slide out. All return lines connected to the water tank lines in the wet bay. Seems most RVers don't understand this device. You simply flip the lever when you need hot water. This sends the cold water back to the fresh water tank. When hot water finally arrives to the location the blue button quickly turns white to let you know you have hot water and flip the lever back. You now have hot water at the sink or shower head without filling your gray water and emptying you precious boondocking freshwater. I would do it again.

Good info here! Always nice to hear from folks who have actually done the job as written info can be so missing on important stuff!

So I have some questions on the why and how of running the lines in RV.
Is there some reason for running new lines for the longer distance or is there some reason for not just feeding it back into the cold supply at each faucet or outlet?
On my house, which is a terrible problem as many are built on slab foundations in this area, we do not have good access to water lines as they are buried/poured in the concrete. But I found it simple enough and works well enough to just add one pump at the vanity at the far end of the water lines and let it circulate the cold water from the hot lines back into the cold going back and let it runs until the hot line water is actually hot! Along the way from water heater, the lines pass the hall bath, kitchen, and finally master bath were we wanted the shower to be hot sooner.




Is there some reason to go further than the first place convenient to reach both hot and cold lines or am I missing a vitasl point?

[skitime]

You can't run return to the cold water line because it it under pressure and you would be trying to run pressurized water backwards thru the water pump. I put a T connector to the fresh fill water line in the water bay which has no pressure when not filling the water tank. So I did not run a additional line all the way to the fresh water tank but close to it. Maybe saved four feet, lol. I did run two water return lines to the wet bay. Kitchen return and the bath return. Bath sink and shower were connected below sink for one bath return.

The trick is to copy the path for the factory cold water run and copy them. Now that was tricky for the kitchen slide out but after removing the bottom of the sink cabinet it was easy to see how the water and gray water lines was engineered with additional slack needed to allow the lines to move in and out. I just duplicated that slack with my water return line.

[Morich]

Okay, the big difference from home to RV is the check valve at the pump which is not on home plumbing!

Sometimes, it really is the devil in the details! Thanks.

[Ray,IN]

Unless you do extended boonbocking, paying to have the https://showermiser.com/ installed is, IMO, a waste of good camping money.
The showermiser was invented about 30 years ago, and in the beginning was very near to what Morich describes. today it is sophisticated and expensive.

[erstanfo]

I have Showermiser in my 2012 36M Journey and it works great. I was able to do the instillation my self last summer. I got it off of Ebay. I was changing from dual handle cheep faucet/shower Winnebago installed to euro style temperature controlled wall mount at the same time. Watch the videos on their web page and see if you can find the fresh water fill line to the water tank. Then you just T in there. Everything else is in the wall at the shower.