Bring running water to remote locations with this foot pump operated wash station. Perfect for camp or the patio. Ideal for campfire or BBQ grill-side food prep clean-up.
Ready for a duch oven or BBQ outdoor cook competition yet miles from running water? Our scout troop uses this Hand Washing Station to clean up before, and during meal food prep.
Even if you are just grilling on the back deck, use this set-up grill-side to keep from from running into the house for a quick rinse every time sauce is slopped. And if its a party...just watch guests try to open a screen door with sticky BBQ covered hands. This pump is made to be operated with a foot...can't say the same for a sliding screen door!
This is ideal for an outdoor group washing-up before meals. Especially when cooking at camp, it would be nice for the cooks to easily clean-up while preparing food with a more traditional sink with running water to promote:
Safe Food Handling Practices
- No Faucet Handle to turn ON and OFF with Dirty Hands.
- Its easy (and fun) to use...so it gets used! (apparently its cool to squirt water with a foot pump)
- There's room for a soap dispenser right there on the table (up off the ground).
It also helps with:
Water Conservation
- The on-demand pump system uses a lot less water (compared to letting gravity spill it from a water jug spigot.
How it works:
A foot pump transfers clean water from the lower bucket up and out the spout for hand washing. The wash water is collected a basin and drained and stored in a gray water bucket receptacle.
When all the fresh water has been transfered to the in the gray water bucket, the gray water is emptied into the fire ring to douse the campfire
The video shows the set-up, convenient "all-in-the-bucket" storage, and the Hand Washing Station in action.
Ready for a duch oven or BBQ outdoor cook competition yet miles from running water? Our scout troop uses this Hand Washing Station to clean up before, and during meal food prep.
Even if you are just grilling on the back deck, use this set-up grill-side to keep from from running into the house for a quick rinse every time sauce is slopped. And if its a party...just watch guests try to open a screen door with sticky BBQ covered hands. This pump is made to be operated with a foot...can't say the same for a sliding screen door!
This is ideal for an outdoor group washing-up before meals. Especially when cooking at camp, it would be nice for the cooks to easily clean-up while preparing food with a more traditional sink with running water to promote:
Safe Food Handling Practices
- No Faucet Handle to turn ON and OFF with Dirty Hands.
- Its easy (and fun) to use...so it gets used! (apparently its cool to squirt water with a foot pump)
- There's room for a soap dispenser right there on the table (up off the ground).
It also helps with:
Water Conservation
- The on-demand pump system uses a lot less water (compared to letting gravity spill it from a water jug spigot.
How it works:
A foot pump transfers clean water from the lower bucket up and out the spout for hand washing. The wash water is collected a basin and drained and stored in a gray water bucket receptacle.
When all the fresh water has been transfered to the in the gray water bucket, the gray water is emptied into the fire ring to douse the campfire
The video shows the set-up, convenient "all-in-the-bucket" storage, and the Hand Washing Station in action.
A patch to the first to call out the troop identifier in a comment
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Signing UpStep 1: Conserve Water vs. the Traditional camp hand washing technique
Before this Instructable camp wash station, this was the well documented typical food preparation procedure at camp in 10 easy steps. (remember these are young teen scouts learning cooking and cleaning responsibility.)
1. Raw chicken is removed from its package and karate chop hacked into cubes (ok...chunks) with several finger-slicing near-misses with the knife.
2. The hacked raw chicken pieces are grabbed, and with the precisionons of an NBA three point shot, are individually tossed into the dutch oven....swoosh...nothing but cast iron...(most of the time).
3. With a sense of winning the game at the buzzer, hands are about to be ceremoniously wiped on the pants.
Wait...there's a whistle on the play...Leadership refereering intervenes... a technical foul is called. The penalized scout is directed to go properly wash his hands.
Properly washing entailed a trip to the 5 gallon spigotted blue jug propped on the end of the picnic table.
4. These same chickened hands open the spogot to start the WATER FLOWING....
One-thousand 1
One-thousand 2
One-thousand 3
5. The hands are wetted
One thousand 4
One thousand 5
One thousand 6
6. Soap is applied
One thousand 7
One thousand 8
7. Wash
One thousand 9
"ewugh"...pause to examine and scrape a rogue piece of chicken stuck to a finger
One thousand 10
One thousand 11
Wash some more...wants to be thorough...because that's just how scouts are...
One thousand 12
One thousand 13
8. Rinse
one thousand 14
One thousand 15
and Rinse
one thousand 16
and some more (because it takes a while to rinse away the suds of six pumps of soap)
One thousand 17
One thousand 18
9. Shake hands to fling water drops and for a quick air dry
One thousand 19
One thousand 20
10. Turn CHICKEN COVERED spigot OFF...with a once clean hand.
Lets critique the process:
Hands cleaned ...Check
Hands re-contaminated from the spigot...Check
Boots submerged (in a newly created mud puddle under the water jug)...Check
Pant legs soaked (from spigot water splashing into same puddle)....Check
Water jug successfully relieved of a gallon or more of water....Check
(Which means after the next 4 washes, the "discussion" about whose turn it is to fetch more water will start. Which will be followed by a unanimus scout group decision that their hands are not really that dirty after all)
...and then...hand washing in general...is over...Check
TASK COMPLETE!
While this new wash station can't make campers wash their hands, it can make it easier, and prevent a soaking; all while conserving water.
Pumping water, even with a foot pump, requires effort so you know water use will be kept to a bare minimum...letting gravity spill it on the ground is easy... and fast!
The same 5 gallons now lasts all day even with everyone washing their hands for meals.
1. Raw chicken is removed from its package and karate chop hacked into cubes (ok...chunks) with several finger-slicing near-misses with the knife.
2. The hacked raw chicken pieces are grabbed, and with the precisionons of an NBA three point shot, are individually tossed into the dutch oven....swoosh...nothing but cast iron...(most of the time).
3. With a sense of winning the game at the buzzer, hands are about to be ceremoniously wiped on the pants.
Wait...there's a whistle on the play...Leadership refereering intervenes... a technical foul is called. The penalized scout is directed to go properly wash his hands.
Properly washing entailed a trip to the 5 gallon spigotted blue jug propped on the end of the picnic table.
4. These same chickened hands open the spogot to start the WATER FLOWING....
One-thousand 1
One-thousand 2
One-thousand 3
5. The hands are wetted
One thousand 4
One thousand 5
One thousand 6
6. Soap is applied
One thousand 7
One thousand 8
7. Wash
One thousand 9
"ewugh"...pause to examine and scrape a rogue piece of chicken stuck to a finger
One thousand 10
One thousand 11
Wash some more...wants to be thorough...because that's just how scouts are...
One thousand 12
One thousand 13
8. Rinse
one thousand 14
One thousand 15
and Rinse
one thousand 16
and some more (because it takes a while to rinse away the suds of six pumps of soap)
One thousand 17
One thousand 18
9. Shake hands to fling water drops and for a quick air dry
One thousand 19
One thousand 20
10. Turn CHICKEN COVERED spigot OFF...with a once clean hand.
Lets critique the process:
Hands cleaned ...Check
Hands re-contaminated from the spigot...Check
Boots submerged (in a newly created mud puddle under the water jug)...Check
Pant legs soaked (from spigot water splashing into same puddle)....Check
Water jug successfully relieved of a gallon or more of water....Check
(Which means after the next 4 washes, the "discussion" about whose turn it is to fetch more water will start. Which will be followed by a unanimus scout group decision that their hands are not really that dirty after all)
...and then...hand washing in general...is over...Check
TASK COMPLETE!
While this new wash station can't make campers wash their hands, it can make it easier, and prevent a soaking; all while conserving water.
Pumping water, even with a foot pump, requires effort so you know water use will be kept to a bare minimum...letting gravity spill it on the ground is easy... and fast!
The same 5 gallons now lasts all day even with everyone washing their hands for meals.
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I found the plastic bread bins, which can be picked up at a restaurant supply store, to be more effective. I put two 2x4s parallel to each other, and screwed some plywood on top at each end for side counters, leaving space for three bread bins to sit within the rails and between the two end counters, then added saw horse legs. Total length, about 10 feet. Works great, but next step is to add bulkheads and drain tubes to the bread bins to make it easier to drain the water.
With this, the hand wash stations and the water heater that HPStoutharrow shows, the kitchen gets a lot of comments each time I take it all out to my Scoutmaster training classes.
If I end up taking the trailer to the IOLS training class next weekend, I'll take pics to post up.
If you put some full strength, chlorine bleach into the fresh water, you could have a sanitary set-up. I believe it is 5 tablespoons (2.5 fluid ounces) for 5 gallons of water to sanitize it for washing .
Is there a reason to use galvanized pipe instead of PVC?
I'm glad I stuck with reading this, but I can't recommend it to others with that distracting discussion in Step 1. I thought you were off on another project.
You can get two twelve inch lengths of 3/4" threaded PVC pluming risers (found in the irrigation isle of your favorite big box home improvement store), a threaded coupler, and a threaded "Tee" fitting ... cut the base of the "tee" so it can be screwed flat to the table with the threaded portion facing up. Then, just assemble and you can run your hose through the assembly. Costs about $4 total and is much lighter.
I'll be recommending the h*ll out of it. GREAT IDEA, hpstoutharrow! Thank you for posting this and solving a genuine problem with style and flair. And with minimal cost as well.
All Around Awesome. Are you in Troop 49? Guessing that is the logo on the table. I have been wanting to build some sort of faucet for a camp sink for a while. This takes the cake.
I might be inspired to maybe use a 5 gallon drink cooler as the fresh water tank on the bottom to hold heated water for washing. It would already have a through hull hole you could use for plumbing.
You could even go crazy and set up a fire pit hot water heater to heat the water. .
OK ... I'm in the process of building this now. The Homer Buckets have gone through a slight design change compared to the ones you have in the photos. What I had to do in order for the basin to nest into the grey water tank was to push the trimmed lid up about an inch to relieve the pressure for the basin to nest properly. Yes, the basin is a little more shallow, but not really that much to notice. In fact, I kind of like it a little more as the rivets are now up a little higher and not in the path of the two buckets.
I'm building three complete units, but want to have one completed before Roundtable this Thursday to show other Scouters. Thanks for putting up the ible!
Ok ... made some new foot pumps. This time, I took a lot of pics. If you don't want this, feel free to delete the post.
Enjoy!
Thanks for the great pics!!
http://www.harborfreight.com/fluid-siphon-pump-93290.html
Also, if you look in today's (Sunday) paper (if you are in the States), and have a local HF store where you live (like we do here in Phoenix), look for a 20% off coupon. Print out the online listing (the stores match the online price) and take that and the coupon into the store and you'll get this for 4.79+tax.
This pump has the check valve build in, so it self primes, which is what you need.
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/accessories/Hopkins-FloTool-clear-tube-super-siphon/_/N-26df?counter=1&filterByKeyWord=siphon+pump&fromString=search&itemIdentifier=159128_0_0_
I can't find if it is self-priming.
Thank you for your help!
You can also check with a Marine Supply store, if you have one in your area.
Thank you for your time.
All I have to say is - What a great project! We did a "sink wettening" (a.k.a. boat christening but for sinks) of the first station last night without a single leak, and were very impressed with the output flow. Completed the second station this afternoon, so all is ready to demonstrate at Roundtable. (Hopefully, soon, you'll get some more hits from AZ.)
As soon as I take the pics, I'll post them up.
We've already begun looking at ways to help reduce the cost per unit, i.e. utilizing used 5 gallon buckets, using other materials other than galvanized pipe and fittings (largest cost items). At what I used, the cost per station is $49 (minus tax), which is definitely less than what is out there commercially.
Regarding the choice of materials, there is a lot of latitude. As a matter of personal preference only; I chose steel pipes; gives it a robust sructural element reminsent of the cast iron hand pumps found at camp. Could have used PVC or something else to support the spout but, I fancied the archetectural asthetics of the tappering 1" to 1/2" to 3/8" sky scraper inspired tower.
(That and... I had the pipe left over from another project.)
By the way, if interested...there are a few other scout friendly projects published earlier and a few more yet to come.
Since building the "twins", we have never used "clean water" to put out our campfires.
Another Tip: Get the foaming pump soap, instead of using regular soft-soap. Your boys will end up using even less water. One squirt to wet the hands, "foam up", then rinse.
Since my previous report, the was stations were used at a Father's and Son's campout the following weekend, during a week long 50 miler in June, and at a Scoutmaster Outdoor Leader Skills Training at the end of August.
Since then, I have received numerous requests for the link to your "ible". Every compliment I get means Kudos out to you, and I make sure people know this was your idea and not mine! ;)
This is another that project might be of interest to add Hot running water to camp:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Camp-Hot-Water-Heater-with-an-easy-to-use-Dispens/
I definitely took advantage of the Hot Water idea, given that we had one of those pots as well ... turned our great!
Thanks again!
Thanks!
When we're camping we use the old fashioned method of one basin for washing, and one for rinsing, but then there's only five of us usually, not 50. LOL The nice thing about your set up for camping would be one fill for the whole day. or even the whole trip maybe.