The Three Biggest Challenges Showering in an RV

I hate showering. I've always hated it - even when I was a little kid. It just seems like a waste of time to me. There are so many more things I'd rather be doing, including working, spending time with my family and vegging out on the couch to watch a TV show or play a game on my phone. Aside from feeling like there are more important things to do, the length of time it takes me to tame my hair after a shower (the process of drying it, brushing it, flat ironing it, etc) is lengthy and discourages me from wanting to take a shower at all. Regardless of my affinity for showering, it's a necessary task for everyday life. A proper home requires a minimum of one bathroom. A home on the road is no different. Just like RVs, showers in RVs come in all shapes and sizes. They are also located in various parts of an RV. Some RVs even have two bathrooms - usually one full bathroom and one half bathroom.

Our 2014 Thor Outlaw 37MD has one bathroom and it is located in the middle of the RV. It is a split design bathroom with the toilet and sink located on the passenger side of the coach and the shower located on the driver side. There is a door that swings open from the toilet and sink side of the bathroom to create one wall of the larger, expanded bathroom. The second wall is a pocket door that slides from the passenger side of the coach to click into place on the driver side. The combination of these two doors connects both sides of the bathroom to form a larger, more functional bathroom. Now that you have a good sense of the layout of our bathroom, let's discuss the functionality of the shower and the challenges we face using it.

Despite the functional bathroom that is created by the two doors, the bathroom is still small (as are most RV bathrooms). The shower is even smaller. Our house in Oklahoma City had a big, beautiful shower with two shower heads. It may be TMI but Rob and I often took showers together at our house - it was our time to talk about our days and just catch up. That doesn't happen in the RV. The shower is barely big enough for one person let alone two. It offers just enough space for you to raise your arms to lather the shampoo in your hair or turn around to rinse the soap off your back. It has ledges for your shampoo, conditioner and body soap but those are barely big enough to contain our bottles. Space is certainly limited - but functional. We even store a plastic tote of medicine inside the shower and hang our jackets on the outside when it's not in use.

Once you get inside the shower, you're met with more challenges. The amount of hot water is extremely limited. The 2014 Thor Outlaw 37MD only has a six gallon gas/electric water heater leaving you with a limited amount of hot water for your shower. It also makes taking back-to-back showers a challenge. With four people living full-time in our RV, we have to be careful to reserve hot water for the next person. This requires some very careful planning. We usually have two people shower in the morning and two people shower in the evening (or we will rotate nights depending on the activities of the day). We also installed a special shower head with a shut off switch to conserve water while lathering up the soap for our hair or bodies.

The shower head is also extremely useful for regulating the water temperature in the shower. Due to the extreme heat of the hot water and the need to shut off the water in between lathering and rinsing, the shower head we installed allows us to set the water temperature where we want it and throttle off the water without messing with the hot and cold handles in the middle of the shower. However, even with the special shower head, we have to be extremely careful not to bump the temperature handles as we navigate the small space. Even the slightest bump to the hot or cold water handles can change the temperature drastically. And just when you think you have it all under control in the shower, someone flushes the toilet or turns on the faucet in one of the sinks which suppresses the cold water in the shower and blasts only scolding hot water on you for a brief amount of time.

The challenges of RV living continue into the shower but, just like with anything in an RV, you figure out what works for you and your family and make adjustments. Taking a shower in an RV isn't hard once you do it a few times and figure out the routine that works for you. This is a first world country after all - even our recreational vehicles have running water and other modern amenities that we should not take for granted.