Ultimate Joolca Upgrades!

PLEASE like and subscribe to this video and my channel so I can catch the YT algorithm. It makes ALL the difference in the world. Thank you!!
This is what you want to do to make the Joolca system work perfectly.
EDIT:On Joolca's FB group page I have the screenshots from Amazon where i got everything.
The place I got the battery from no longer sells it, but you can at least see what I paid. I'm sure someone else sells it.
Total Costs:
Diverter Valuve - $65
Battery - $50
Quick disconnects - $14
Brass 90° (2 pack) - $13
Brass Nipple - $8
Brass 1/2" NTP to 3/4" Hose Adapters (2 pack) - $8
Then there are the D batteries not mentioned in my post and not sure if I did in the video. They were $25, but now they are $26.
Final Cost: $157 ($183 including the 2 D batteries) + Tax

[@Mike-ld7wn]

Hey mate..great set up to resolve the stop start issue. Great thinking and problem solving! Cheers from Australia

[@jmalinowski1000]

Have you tested this? It appears to me it would heat the water in the supply tank and make the shower too hot, possibly turning of the heater due to over temp.

[@humveeadventures]

That is exactly what happened. I used the shower every night for three and a half months straight in the mountains. The only way this system works flawless is if you have a stream or river to draw from. It did definitely help, but yeah you need access to the temperature control in order to keep the unit at a good temperature and not shut off because of it getting to 125°. I had a 6 gallon blue water tank from Walmart so the water got heated up fairly quickly. The bigger the water tank and the less amount of time you have it diverted, the water will be affected the least

[@israelestonina5949]

Nice! Thank you for sharing this video!

[@JustinVManes]

Smart!

[@diywithhaz1559]

The shower head disconnects from the shower switch so you can use two hoses and the switch goes on the wall in the shower to make it easier. Hope this helps

[@SuperLooneyrooney]

I'm using my Joolca set up for an enclosed outdoor shower/dish washing area at an off grid cabin/mancave/ garage set up and the original set up meets my purpose fine. I use the dish washing tub as well as i didn't want to deal with any indoor plumbing to start out with, but i see your concept here may be interesting for some.

[@humveeadventures]

If you have a large or unlimited water supply then what I did here is unnecessary. Unfortunately when you have a small water supply like say a 5 gallon jug, what I did here help for sure, but in practice it actually doesn't solve the problem and I didn't find that out until after I made the video and I used it in the real world. What keeps the concept from working perfectly is that the water heater doesn't compensate for the incoming water temperature to keep the outgoing what it said at. So when the water recirculates it warms up the incoming water and then it's a positive feedback loop, in a bad way. Now if I had maybe a minimum of a 20 gallon water supply then yes what I did here would work great, but at 5 gallons it only halfway helps

[@SuperLooneyrooney]

@@humveeadventures got it. With only 5 gallons water to work w is going to be a challenge but i hope your system works out for you.

[@humveeadventures]

I'll be making at least a 50 gallon tank this summer. At that point the recirculation system will work great as long as there's more than probably 15 gallons in there

[@YeepLife]

Just placed order for 3x reach extension hose. can i connect these together to extend it to 98 ft to a stream as advertised in the joolca videos? i bought the outing kit thinking it comes with the reach extension hose but it did not. if i am able to connect 3x of these hose together, will i still get normal water pressure coming from it?

[@humveeadventures]

I don't know what the specs are with how far these pumps can pump. Joolca is really good with their customer service so just send them an email to their customer service and I bet they'll get back within 24 hours and let you know how much hose you can have between the pump and the heater. One thing that I do know for sure is that the pump is designed to push the water and not pull it. So you want to have a shorter hose from your pump to your water supply and then however many feet Joolca says it's okay between the heater and the pump

[@GetjBone]

I am all about upgrades but this is overkill. What I do to solve the issue is use a hose between the shower head and on/off switch so it is at waist level. Then before you shower, set desired temp and recirculate water into water source (I.e. 5gal jug) with the kitchen sink hose. The temp won’t go any higher than what you set even with recirc. I guess this would only be possible if you had all the extras or the off grid package.

[@humveeadventures]

I'm trying to follow what you're saying, but literally sounds like exactly what I did LOL

[@humveeadventures]

And yes it definitely raises the source water temp because you're putting heated water back into the water source. Now if it's a 50 gallon tank everything will be fine, but with 5 gallon tank, I have to be able to reach the thermostat on the heater and keep turning it down because otherwise it'll get too hot and shut off automatically

[@utahblues359]

One major problem with the recirculating system is the Joolca is not thermostatically controlled therefore the water will keep heating and getting hotter and hotter.

[@humveeadventures]

Yep that was something that I noticed the first time I put the system into use. So unfortunately the only way that issue can be sort of solved is either joined from a big tank to where the water doesn't get heated up enough for it to matter, or have the unit within Arm's Reach so it can be turned down as time goes on. The other tragedy of the system design is that the unit will not automatically restart when the temperature drops down. So you have to turn the shower head off for it to build up pressure and then turn it back on. Obviously it's a pain in the ass and although the recirculating system is better than not having one at all, it definitely leaves much to be desired:-(

[@gdsheldon]

Nice addition for the Joolca setup. For those of us who don't do Facebook, can you post the parts list in the description for this video as well. TIA

[@humveeadventures]

OK I'll so that. I'll try tonight, but I can't promise 100% that I'll remember lol. If I forget tonight, eventually it'll pop in my head and I'll add it.

[@gdsheldon]

@@humveeadventures Thanks. Much appreciated!

[@humveeadventures]

Posted

[@chirogirl67550]

Good video! Thanks for the info…Peace and Blessings

[@SAPPER510]

Can you build me the same water diversion system if I pay you?

[@humveeadventures]

Yes, but it's not perfect. Once I put it into practice I found a few things out. If you want to talk about it further, email me at my channel name on Gmail

[@SAPPER510]

@@humveeadventures OK, sounds good.

[@besprentv]

Thank you for making this video. Do you have the link for this upgrade?

[@humveeadventures]

I made a parts list with the prices I paid on Joolca's FB group page. I believe I bought everything on Amazon.

[@Khrissicks]

On the joolca FB community page? I am also looking for the list. Thank you

[@humveeadventures]

Joolca has a Facebook group page. Understand that what I did isn't a 100% fix. If you have a good sized water tank, this fix will work great. During last summer I only had 5 gallon tanks. So while what I did helped, it wasn't a perfect fix because of how the water heater works. When you do the bypass, it puts hot water back into the tank. Well with a small tank, the water heats up faulrly quickly and the water heater needs to be turned down as you're using it. The heaters don't adjust the outgoing temp to compensate for the incoming water becoming hotter. So it'll get up to like 125° and then shut off for safety reasons. With a bigger water tank, the water inside it doesn't warm up near as fast so you won't have to mess with the outgoing temp control

[@MCphattyStoolz]

Thanks for sharing. Great idea, and visual quality is excellent. But it's a 4min video that goes-on too long.

[@humveeadventures]

Unfortunately it only mostly works. Once I actually put it into use I found out really quickly that the way the unit heats the water, it doesn't compensate for the temperature of the incoming water getting warmer from the recirculation. So if you have like a 50 gallon water tank or something then you probably won't notice it when taking a normal shower, but when I was fully portable I only had those blue 6 gallon jugs from Walmart. Yeah so even though my recirculation system helped, it was still a bit of a pain in the butt

[@robertwilson1827]

Longer the video, the more the algorithm likes it, the more audience it reaches!😊😊😊

[@humveeadventures]

Mmmmmmhmmmmmm exactly

[@38possum]

Anybody catch what the battery was actually for?

[@humveeadventures]

To power the pump. It's a 10ah LiFePo4 battery that will last 10 years.

[@humveeadventures]

So in theory what I did in the video should have worked marvelously. Unfortunately the reality is that it did not work perfectly, although it was still beneficial. Since the middle of May this year, I use the shower every night for about three and a half months. You only really need this recirculation system if you are having to bring potable water with you. My recommendation is to always get your water from a stream. So what winds up happening is that when you bring your own water and it's not an unlimited Supply, having it in a 6 gallon container like I did from Walmart, it heats up the water that's in the container fairly quickly and because of how their tankless heater is designed, whatever temperature you have it set at it will raise whatever the incoming temperature is to that point. So what I mean by that is if you have 40 degree water and have it set at a certain point to raise it up to 112, well at that same setting and you have 50° water now it's going to be at 122 °. I think it automatically shuts off at 125 or so. So with the recirculation system you actually have to have the unit close by so you can continually turn down the heat setting. Otherwise it keeps wanting to shut off because the water is too hot and then you have to stop the water flow and then start it again for it to kick back on. It's still better than strictly using everything as it comes from the factory, but like I said it's a hassle because the unit isn't self adjusting to keep the water temperature at 112 regardless of the incoming temperature

[@scottcarl3086]

Need two different water tanks. One for cold water and the other for hot water.

[@humveeadventures]

Not sure if this is what you meant or not, but either way you sparked a great idea for me. So you have the cold water tank that you pump from to take a shower and then when I flip the recirculation lever, you have that hot water go into a separate tank so it doesn't make your cold water hot and then make everything more difficult

[@scottcarl3086]

@@humveeadventures yes. That's what I meant

[@KennysCrap]

No. It comes in cold not hot.