/diy/ - Do It Yourself

When I was in the Army and in Iraq we had these semi-shitty locally made barracks that, due to some mortar attacks, were unfinished. We had to move our soldiers in right away so we had no power or water cause the local builders couldn't work in them with 150 G.I.s everywhere. Eventually we cobbled something together for water but we had no gas lines or source of gas so no water heaters. We bought some locally made black plastic storage tanks that where about 2 meters high and across and put em on the roof. By about 11 AM every day that water was hot enough for a warm shower if you only used hot water. By 4 PM it would burn the shit out of you if you didn't mix it with cold. Water would stay warm enough for a shower till about 2-3 hours after sundown. Water pressure was good too and we didn't use any pumps, just gravity. Admittedly this was Baghdad so there was lots of sun even in the winter but the system was not optimized at all. If you use one that is made just to heat water you wouldn't probably just about boil it.