What you can do yourself for a comfortable wash
A mobile bath is an opportunity to take a steam bath with friends directly on a fishing trip or on a break during a hike. With her, a tourist vacation will become simply unforgettable. But if we talk about a hand-made camping bath, then for this you need a frame, special heat-insulating material, and, of course, a stove.
Many people buy a ready-made stove for a hike, but you can make one yourself. There are several options for homemade stoves, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. Masters distinguish three types of heating devices.
- Stove with intermittent heating.
- Improved travel heater.
- Camping stoves of long burning.
To take a steam bath in nature, a pyramid of stones is erected inside the unfinished frame of the tent. They cover it with wood, which will heat the stacked stones. Only after the wood has burned out, its remains are removed, and the tent is covered with tarpaulin or cellophane wrap. The main disadvantage of such a heater is the one-time heating. If there was enough heat after the firewood, then you had time to steam. To create periodic heating, stones are placed in a metal mesh pipe. It can be set up or pulled out of the fire, maintaining the temperature in the tent, which in this case serves as a camping bath.
The improved camping stove is represented by a small “P” -shaped design. For this, bricks are placed on the sides and covered with a lattice, on which stones are laid out. Wood is placed under the grate and set on fire. Firewood is periodically added to maintain the temperature in the tent. Despite the primitive design, this type of bath is quite effective.
You can also build a device for long burning with your own hands. It is a metal structure made of a profiled pipe. Inside there is a hole for laying firewood, a chimney and even a water tank. This type of oven will give you the opportunity to take a good steam out in nature.
A long-burning stove should be taken on vacation only if you travel by car: it is quite difficult to pull this structure on yourself, but such a structure will easily fit in the luggage compartment.
A bit of history
There is an opinion that our geologists, gold prospectors, taiga hunters and just travelers borrowed the idea of a camping bath from the peoples living in a chum covered with reindeer skins with a hole at the top. In the middle of the plague, a fire was burning, surrounded by stones. When the stones were well warmed up, they were watered with water. That's the whole bathhouse! A similar camping bath with your own hands is available for our travelers. Check out our photos, maybe they will give you useful ideas for translating them into reality.
Camping bath scheme
What does the bath consist of?
To equip a portable steam room, you can use a fairly simple design. A primitive heater with periodic heating is installed in it. You will need to make a small drawing of the future structure.
One of the options for a camping structure that tourists or fishermen use to steam in nature necessarily includes a frame made of strong and thick sticks. It should be covered with foil or tarpaulin. Inside the structure, a stove is equipped, which will serve as a heating means. Its size should be smaller than the steam department itself. The steam room itself can be divided into a steam room and a dressing room.For better thermal insulation and creating comfortable conditions inside the structure, logs are laid along the walls.
For a homemade long-burning stove, special collapsible tents with a hole for a chimney are used. Particular attention should be paid to the drawing of a homemade metal stove. The dimensions of 550 × 750 mm are excellent dimensions for the construction of a camping furnace. The compartment for laying firewood in height can be made the same as the water tank, but the blower should be half as much.
It is also important for her to make the right foundation. Therefore, before installing the oven, you should dig a small hole 10 cm deep. Its width should be 5 cm larger than the structure itself.
The main feature of such camp stoves is a real sauna atmosphere, which is created by steam and good heating. For this type of baths, you need to purchase a special tent in advance, which has an opening for a chimney. The structure itself easily fits into the trunk of a car and is transported to any place to rest. An improved version of a solid-fuel camping stove for a bath creates quite comfortable conditions for vaping. Even without raising the temperature in the tent much, you can reach a humidity of about 60%.
For the travel option, pyrolysis ovens are also suitable, which are in no way inferior to gas units. You can build it yourself by making a correct and accurate design drawing.
What does a solid fuel stove consist of?
Field bath heating
Everyone chooses a source of heat for relaxation based on their own preferences.
When organizing a bath on your own, it is permissible to use heated boulders or smooth pebbles that are bought or found nearby. Boulders and pebbles are warmed up on a fire to a high temperature, then, with the help of a poker, they are moved to a bath-tent. To maintain the temperature, the stones are poured with water. This method is simple and economical, however, it is associated with a low level of efficiency, since the stones quickly lose temperature.
Field bath stoves are a more efficient and safer way of heating.
Furnaces are equipped with:
- Stationary box for laying stones up to 15 kg;
- Protective screens that reduce the risk of burns when in contact with the furnace body;
- A spark arrester that will allow you to achieve greater safety for the tent of a camping bath and increased efficiency due to a double combustion chamber.
Material for making a camping bath
For mounting the frame, you can take wooden, aluminum or carbon fiber racks. Better, of course, to use pre-prepared poles made of fire-resistant material. But if we are talking about field conditions, then thick branches are suitable for the construction of a disposable frame.
If you do not plan to install a camping bath in advance, then you can take ordinary plastic wrap to cover the frame. In order for the steam room to be a success, you need to guess with its size or make small calculations before the trip, starting from an area of 6 square meters. This amount will be quite enough to create a good steam room in nature.
It is also worth preparing firewood and stones in advance. Dry wood of medium thickness is suitable for a camping bath. It is better to take different stones - rounded and with sharp edges. To create a heater, you need a lot of them to ensure good heating and sufficient steam. But layered and flat stones should be discarded immediately.
Features of creating camp stoves
Despite the fact that you can buy heating elements for a mobile bath in a store, many people prefer to create a stove with their own hands. The main feature is the correct choice of materials. This will make the sauna not only practical, but also safe.
How to heat a camp stove
| View | Features of the |
| Special attention should be paid to stones. | If some need to be heated to white, others should be red-hot. And only after that you can start bathing procedures. |
| Be careful what kind of wood you are going to use. | As for firewood, the prohibition here is the use of construction timber or cuttings of sleepers impregnated with special means. Such actions will lead to the release of harmful substances during vaping and, accordingly, poisoning of the body. |
For better heat preservation in the tent, you need to spread a sheet of iron under the stove.
To ensure the most comfortable conditions, you also need to choose a good place in advance. Flat terrain with a high level of soil density is excellent, since soft or loose soil will not make it possible to build a reliable and durable bath frame.
Some helpful tips
- Since stones can crack violently when heated and chunks will begin to fly off from them, you need to be careful.
- It is better to water them with hot water and then it will evaporate almost immediately. At the same time, cold water promotes the formation of debris.
- IN Regarding the tight-fitting material, it is worth noting that preference should be given in favor of the tent - the whole point is that if you use a film, you will need a lot of it and in a hiking backpack it will take up more space than an ordinary Soviet tarpaulin tent. With all this, the tent in the future will also serve as an excellent sleeping place.
- Advice. Prepare stones for the sauna stove with a rounded, slightly elongated shape, without any delamination (other stones can simply burst under the influence of high temperature). River / lake boulders with a diameter of about 20 centimeters are ideal (too small in size will "give off" very little heat, too large - they simply will not have time to heat up).
5.Advice. If you plan to use a tourist scarf as a bathhouse facility, then by no means is it of a modern design. The fact is that such tents are not designed for high temperatures; moreover, when heated, they can emit toxic
Installing the stove
Depending on what kind of stove you decide to make for the bath, the installation process will depend. If we consider the heaters, then the work should be done as follows.
- Remove the top layer of soil, which will allow the stove to be installed securely and firmly.
- Then prepare the stones. They can be laid out in the form of a large slide and overlaid with firewood. Or alternate cobblestones with prepared wood.
- The next step will be the creation of the most marching design of the bath.
Special tents are sold for a homemade metal stove with a chimney. Here it is worth taking care of the safety of people in the bathhouse, since a camping steam room, even in nature, provides for working with fire. Therefore, when melting the stove, it is important not to overdo it with fuel, so that fiery tongues of flame do not jump out of it.
To relax in nature, people came up with a camping bath, which has a minimal set of functions and has a completely simple design. Choosing between buying special new equipment and creating a furnace structure on your own, it is worth weighing the pros and cons.
If you are planning a one-time trip to nature, then it will be enough to build a primitive hiking steam room on the spot and not spend money on buying store products.
Frame and awning manufacturing
A small digression: it is very difficult to place such a specific structure as a camping bath with a stove in a classic tourist tent due to the peculiarities of its design. She has an extremely small height and there is no possibility for arranging a normal chimney. Conclusion: you need a tent with a rigid frame, to make it you will need:
- thin-walled steel pipe with an internal diameter of 12.5 mm, the length of the pipe is calculated based on the size of the structure;
- round metal bar with a diameter of 12 mm.
The device of the tent should provide for the presence of two rooms for a dressing room and a steam room. Between them there should be a fabric partition with a zipper, which will provide the ability to isolate them from each other. When making the frame, it is recommended: to make long vertical posts, as well as other parts of the frame, to make composite. This will reduce their size by half, the docking units are easy to manufacture.
The tube is cut into blanks in accordance with the drawing, a steel bar is inserted and fixed on one side. Its length should be at least 200 mm, and half of it is recessed into the cavity of the rack. For corners, connecting elements of the corresponding shape are made. Two rods of 100 mm are welded at right angles, and the third is attached perpendicular to the resulting plane.
We recommend a video instruction for assembling a simple stone bath and a homemade canopy:
After the manufacture of all units, a complete assembly of the frame is performed and, if necessary, adjustment. It is recommended to make the roof of the structure of the tent type in case of rain. This will allow the water to drain off easily. Now we can move on to cutting and sewing the awning, for which we need dense nylon tent fabric, zippers and strong threads.
According to the drawing, we draw up a pattern of parts, taking into account the seam allowances. They must be made double, as on jeans. If you do not have the necessary skills to work with a sewing machine, then it makes sense to turn to a professional seamstress. Inside the tent there should be a partition with a zipper. Now you can assemble the tent and pull up the awning; ribbons are sewn on it at the bottom to attach the canopy to the frame. The bath tent should be equipped with guy ropes and pegs for anchoring to the ground.
