Do you have a soft floor camper like one of these Platinum Campers and would like a hot water system connected to it?
Watch how we modified one of these Platinum Campers to have a Joolca hot water system that can be connected under 45 seconds without tools.
The Request
The owner of this Platinum Camper (Cadet) contacted us because he had a Joolca hot water system that he’d like to connect to the water tank on the actual camper and maybe even get hot water running to the sink. Now, he was really insistent that it had to be tool less, like the other campers in our other videos. These Platinum campers are great, but the owner had a few little issues with it. The first one was the gas install. It was safe, up to code and worked. But with a little tweak, it could be a lot safer.
The Gas Issue
There was a quick connect fitting installed underneath the trailer. On the kitchen side at the back, there was a bayonet fitting. If you connect the quick connect fitting hose onto the bayonet, gas could pour out of the end of the hose until you got it into the kitchen and locked it off.
So, if you’ve got kids, 10 years old or so, who like cooking and stuff, you wouldn’t really want them to hook up the hot plate for you because there’s a certain order to do it safely.
The Gas Solution
All we need to do is remove the quick release fitting from the back of the camper and installed our normal bayonet fitting there. At the back of the kitchen, we removed the bayonet fitting. The hole’s a bit bigger but we sorted it out with a few wall plates. You can see in the video where we installed the new quick release fittings.
The Hot Plates
We also show you in the video how to connect it up. All you need to do is:
- Grab your bayonet hose
- Remove the dust plug from the gas bayonet
- Connect the hose up. Remember, no gas is going to come out of the hose until you connect it up to the other end of the quick release fitting
- Line the hose up and connect it to the other quick release fitting
And you’re connected. How easy is that?
You can connect up your hot plates to the gas on roadside stop, quick and easily without tools, do it super safe and even your 10 year old can do it.
The Plumbing Issue
Another issue these Platinum campers had was with the little tap that you wash your hands with. No water ever came out. The reason for that is they’ve used this clear, very strong obviously, plastic tubing, but once it’s got a kink in it, like this one did, it remembers that it’s kinked and you’re sort of stuck with it.
The little aluminium cover protects and hides all the water pipes for the filler, the breather, the hand washing tap, and things like that. So what happened was they had this clear tubing that was connected to the pump, so it came out from that bottom corner, had a tee off it, that went round and connected up to the little tap. And that’s what had the kink in it. Then it did 180 degree turn and went back inside the back of the camper that connects up to the kitchen sink.
The Plumbing Solution
So what we did is we just pulled all that tubing out and replaced it with the Reinforced which we like to use. See how flexible it is. If you try and do the same bending movement with the other tube, it just folds.
Then what we did this time is we came out of the pump through a little tee down in that corner. That tee swung around and came up to the bottom of the tap. Then we did 180 degree turn back to the camper. Just before it enters the back of the camper again to go to kitchen, we put another tee that swung around and came out of the quick connect fitting. This is a cold supply for the Joolca hot water system to plug into.
There’s a bit going on underneath that little cover. Ben the plumber nearly slashed his wrist few times, not because he hated doing the job, but he had to try and get his hands underneath the cover, tightening up hose clamps, making sure the filler was pushed on enough to get it all working.
He’s not complaining,. It was a great job and he loved doing it and happy to do another one in the future.
The Mixer
One more thing the owner asked us to do was to remove the single cold tap in the kitchen and install a new mixer. So the cold side of the mixer is just connected up as normal, as it was before. But now it’s got a hot side. We’ve connected the hot to the little quick release fitting with dust cap for it too. So now from the Joolca hot water system, you can plug it into the outlet of the hot water system and go straight into the kitchen sink. Now he has hot water for the kitchen.
The Gas Hot Water System
The only other thing we did is we installed a little bayonet with a dust plug and fabricated a little stainless steel bracket to hang the Joolca hot water system.
How to connect the Joolca hot water system to the kitchen sink using the water tank on the camper:
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Connect the gas
- Hang your Joolca hot water system on the little bracket
- Grab your gas hose
- Take the dust plug out of the bayonet
- Connect the gas hose into the bayonet. Again no gas is going to come out of this
- Click the other end of the hose to the bottom of the gas side of Joolca
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Connect the hot water
- Grab your long hose with the quick release fitting
- Remove the dust plug out of the fitting at the back of the kitchen
- Clip it in there
- Connect the other end of the hose to the hot side of Joolca
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Connect the cold water supply
- Grab the short hose
- Clip it onto the bottom of Joolca (cold side)
- Go to the feed line. As soon as you plug it in, if the pump’s on, the water should start charging and the hot water system should start making some noise and spring to life.
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You can see in the video that it’s trying to light but doesn’t because the water is off at the kitchen sink. When we turn the hot water on the kitchen tap, you can see it starts flowing through. The water is getting hot. You can look at the hot water system, how hot it is, and you can adjust the temperature whichever way you like.
The Shower
Let’s say you’ve finished using the kitchen sink. Now you want to start showering, using the water from the tank in your camper.
How does it work?
- It’s best just to disconnect the hot water system from the feed (charge) line.
- Take off the hot line (hot water hose) from the kitchen sink and Joolca. You can easily flick it out, how easy is that. Roll up your hose and put it away
- Grab your shower hose abd clip it onto the hot side of Joolca
- Plug the hose back to the feed line
Once all the air comes out, you’ll see water start coming out of the end of the shower. Again, you can adjust the flame and the water to suit whatever you like.
Saving Your Tank Water
If you don’t really want to use your tank water for showering, then all you need to do is:
- Unplug the hose from the feed line
- Roll up the hose and put it away as you won’t need that for a while
- Then most of you got the little flow tank pump. Clip the outlet straight onto to inlet of the Joolca
- Put the other end (the inlet of the pump where you’ll have the filter) into a filled jerry can or bucket
- Make sure your pump’s connected to the power
That’ll start charging and you can start showering using creek water, or water that’s not fit for drinking but plenty for showering. You can just shower to your heart’s content. Or until your bottle runs out, but then you just swap it over to the next one.
We hope that all made sense. We really enjoyed working on one of these Platinum Campers, removing the pain points. And we hope it makes it so much more enjoyable when you use these campers for many years to come.
Are you interested?
So we’ve got a large workshop.
Now many years ago, Ben worked as a plumber at a company called Heeshen Shipyards over in Holland. Now they build these luxury aluminium super yachts. It was there he was taught how to tig weld because he had to make up brackets sometimes where there weren’t any support for the pipes that he was putting in. So it’s very easy for him to fabricate brackets to hold bayonets or water connectors or something for your caravan or camper, to protect them from branches, bushes, or just to support them.
So if you, like us, live in the best city in Australia, and you would like an extra gas bayonet put in your caravan or need to fix a gas leak. Or you just need the gas certified on your camper or caravan. You might even be thinking, “Oh, I wouldn’t mind having a little hot water system plumbed in, or an extra water tank!” Give Beautiful Plumbing a call. We’ll be happy to help.
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