7 Ways to Get Hot Water in a Campervan

1. Boil Water

Grab a pan, fill it with water, stick it on the hob, boom hot water. Simple and every campervan has both a hob and pan dont they? We’ve done multiple trips using this method for cleaning dishes and cant falt it. It’s great when you need a cup of tea, or to clean dishes, but for anything else (washing, showering etc) it’s a bit of a pain to have to keep boiling multiple pans.

2. Water Heater

There are a number of water heaters on the market but they all work more or less the same way by heating a body of water in a holding tank. Most of these use Gas or Electric when connected to mains. These are great if you want shower facilities.

On average they take around 30 to 45 minutes to heat water, and it’s always a good idea to turn the heater on before you need it. Most water heaters however, cannot be used whilst driving as they require gas which you cannot use whilst driving the UK. This normally means you have to stop and then turn the heater on, wait 30 minutes before you have hot water.

3. Combi Boiler

These are very similar to the above water heaters, however I thought they deserver their own category as they also function as both a water heater and a room / space heater all in one unit, just like a house boiler system!

One unit to rule them all, well somthing like that. If you have the budget, they are pricey at the time of writing this, however you could save a bunch of space with a single unit and one installation, instead of potentially double space used by two seperate units (room heater & water heater).

4. Tankless Hot Water Boiler

Tankless and instant hot water? magic… no its not magic. There are boiler units out there which will heat water as its flowing hence the name instant! Gas instant hot water units are what you are looking for, as electric ones require such a high power draw you would need a larger amount of electric which wont be practical.

Ventilation, ventilation and more ventilation is really important! Most of these units are designed for either well ventilated / large rooms or outdoors use, not the back of a van. Always read the instructions and make sure you ventilate and build a suitable flu system.

5. Solar

You could always harness the solar engine coming from the big yellow blob in the sky we call the sun. Either via the means of a solar shower bag like this one or this one (affiliate links) (a big water carrier which is solid black) or even tubes on the van coloured black to absorb the solar heat.

This has the benefits of not needing any complicated gas installations and can be as simple or complicated as you make it, the simplest is the black water carrier chuck on top of your roof!

Lets face it in the UK you aren’t going to get crazy boiling water using this solution, but for a freshing shower in the summer this would work perfectly. These obviously work best for showers, but you could empty the water into a bucket for things like dishes, though they may not be much use in the winter or short days though!

6. Calorifier Tank

Make hot water whilst your driving? Say what? Yep, you heard me, its what we have in our campervan and love it. It’s hooked into our engines coolant system which means whilst we drive and the engines heats up, it also heats up a tank of water – basically the same concept as #2 but using your engine as the heat source.

All we did was locate the coolant pipes which run into the back of the heater matrix for the cabin blowers, cut one of the pipes and diverted the flow to the calorifier tank and back into the heater matrix.

Its great turning up to a site and knowing you have hot ready ready to go, and the tank we have is insulated and stays boiling for hours, even warm in the mornings! This option isn’t so great though if you’re plannning on staying in the same place for days on end, as you’d have to run your engine for 10-20 minutes each day to re-heat the water.

7. Log Burner

Cant say we are experts in this area. We know people love log burners in their vans, but its not for us. However I dont see why you couldn’t use this as a way to heat up water! Both via a pot sitting on top of the stove or a network of pipes running through or near the burner to heat water as it passes!

This is something I would love to try, but unfortunately we dont have a burner in our camper.