Hurricane season is dwindling down in Florida, and I was gone for most of it. Nevertheless, I’ve spent many hours over the last few weeks going over my emergency supplies and accompanying lists. Now that I have my minivan RV, many of my hurricane supplies double as camping supplies.

Many people with minivan RV’s convert the entire space inside the vehicle into living space. Because I wanted my space to be convertible for either use as a regular vehicle or camping, I don’t have as much space to use for camping. Some people put a little sink into their conversions, but I don’t have room for that, so I’ve been considering the issue of water.

I have a plastic sink, and it would be great to have a set-up that allows for a faucet that pulls water from a container.

I belong to several van dweller and minivan RV groups on Facebook, and I get some great ideas from them. One idea was this rechargeable camp shower.

I have a blue 5-gallon water container, and the end of this unit would fit perfectly into it. These are mostly shown thrown into a bucket of water, but I need to be able to carry water with me without spilling it.

I was really excited about this camping shower, but when it arrived, my hopes were quickly dashed. First, the battery would not charge. The battery came detached from the unit and included a cable for charging. The light was supposed to turn blue when fully charged, but it never turned blue. I thought it must be charged because of how long I left it plugged in, but I would never be able to find out because I could not get the battery to attach to the other part of the unit.

I contacted the manufacturer about this defect, but they treated me like a moron so I made this video.

A defect in the manufacture of the item just would not allow me to attach it. I considered using some sort of sharp tool to hollow out the space I needed, but since it didn’t seem to charge anyway, I decided to just give up. I really wanted them to send me a new battery to try, but they said they could not. So, I had decided to return it.

However… after making this video and posting it along with a terrible review on Amazon, the manufacturer reached out to me again and said they now understood what I was saying. Of course!

They sent me a new unit at no charge to me. When it arrived, I again charged the battery. Again, the light never turned blue. However, I noticed that when it began charging, the orange light was blinking. Then, later on, it stopped blinking. So, I’m guessing once the orange light is solid, that means the unit is fully charged.

I connected the showerhead, dropped the pump into my 5-gallon water container and turned it on. After a few seconds, I had a great flow of water out the showerhead! There are two flow settings on the pump, and they both work great. I did notice that the base of the shower head leaked. Nowhere in the instructions did it say to utilize them, but I remembered there were two o-rings among the included pieces. I unscrewed the showerhead and inserted one. No more leak!

I’m not sure what the durability of this product will be, but it’s going to be incredibly useful in my travels. It’s really as close to a working sink as I’m likely to get given the amount of space I’m working with. I’ll have 5 gallons of water to work with besides the 2 gallons I intend to have in my cooler for drinking. I’m excited to give this some real-world use.