Permaculture hot water tank

 Check out this hot water tank, built by Floyd in the camp site next to ours. We camped up in the East Kootenays in BC at White Tail lake for the May Long Weekend 2011. The logging road in takes approximately an hour (if you don't want to jiggle every screw out of your vehicle). Being remote like that makes a person feel cut off and much in need of ways to cope with things like running out of propane. Of course a person could heat over the fire, but this method allows a large quantity of water to be heated in a relatively simple fashion.
SO. You can see above that Floyd has his 5 gallon pail insulated and duct taped to the hilt. He keeps a scooping pot handy so he can refill after doing dishes or having a shower. His camping spot, used 2X/ year by he and his wife, Helen, for 2-3 weeks each time, once in the cool spring and once in the potentially cool fall, is situated beside a mountain run-off babbling brook.

That's my grubby hand, showing how Floyd attached a handle to the double lid. Between two lids there is insulation and then they are duct taped together.

A peek inside the 5 gallon pail. It's not quite boiling, but will boil if left long enough. Floyd has been retired for some time, but he's still plotting and planning. He figures he'll bring a hot tub out one of these times and shock the other campers. You can barely see the fittings that he's got on the inside, securing the hoses.

Here, you see the two hoses, scavenged from a hot tub. One is placed high on the bucket, the other as low as it can go. "Hot" and "Cold" if you will. Having the whole thing up on a stump is important, allowing gravity to help the cold water fall when it wants to.

The "Y" stick is an important part, keeping the hot up and the cold down. 

I didn't ask what the log is for, but can guess it's to keep the pipes off of the cold ground. Either way, Floyd's thinking cap seems to be put on straight, so I'll follow his lead.

Because they come to the same camp ground year after year, Floyd was designed the heating element specifically for this hole. 

You can't see it here, but scroll back and notice how the top element (the one that comes off the top and is further away in this picture) is the "hot" and the bottom one is for the cold. This is important. When first told that our neighbours had this going on, I thought he would have used copper pipe, but because copper wears out faster, he's chosen aluminum. 

To bend the pipe, he filled it with sand first. This disallows kinks and breaks. 

I covet his old kettles. Cast aluminum. 

Lily helps me.