Review by Fruit Loop:

We bought this for camping since we do it year-round in all sorts of weather, but it’s been invaluable during natural disasters as well. The Coleman Water Heater kept us provided with hot water during an ice storm that killed power, and four hurricanes. Highly recommend.

Review by Amazon Customer:

We’re dedicated car-campers and have always heated water on the stove for cleaning dishes and ourselves. Never again. The Hot-Water-On-Demand product works very well. You get hot water almost instantly and there is enough temperature control to use this as a shower with the optional sprayer attachment. We still use a sun shower for ourselves due to the hose length, but for cleaning our kids, washing dishes, washing your hands or face, etc this is fantastic. Battery life has been fully acceptable. We charge it before a trip then keep it plugged into the car when we’re moving between camping locations. The propane cylinders last a reasonably long time – we’ve gotten 6 days out of the current cylinder and it hasn’t run out. The unit is light enough to easily move it to where you need it. Ours tends to live at one end of the picnic table and we put a small basin below it to act as a sink. I fully plan to use this for the upcoming tailgate season.

Review by Bret Snickers:

i recently purchased a triton hot water system for a fourth of july camp out. thinking i was a day late on my order didnt plan on it even getting here on time!! IT DID!!! way to go Amazon!!!! as far as the heater goes!!! 5 Star all the way!! plug it in to some water, install two batteries, hook up to propane!! and shower to your hearts content!!! absolutely awesome!!! took the advice from other users and shielded it from the wind, had absolutely no problems!! one shower for 19 people for three days and not one cold shower!!! i rate it as one of the best things since sliced bread!!!!!!

Camping Guy!!

Review by Clinton Landron:

The Triton water heater that I recently purchased was delivered very promptly and was in excellent shape. Other than the garden hose converter fitting for the output port being the wrong thread size for U.S. garden hoses, everything went together easily and quickly. After purchasing the correct output fitting, I was able to convert an outside shower from one with just cold water to one with hot water. The heater works beautifully and heats water as advertised. I wish I would have stumbled across this product years ago.

Review by A. Sierra:

Whether boating, camping, etc. This makes it very simple to carry with you and two tanks of gas! Saves a lot of space and having to carry separate items.

Review by K. Bratlie:

This product is very well built and should give many years of service.

Review by Grumble:

I received my tankless water heater this morning. It was well-packed and the instructions are pretty good. I appreciated the “extras” that are usually “optional at additional cost,” like the shower head, mounting hardware, and propane tank hookup.

But (there’s always a “but!”), unless you have plumbing fittings handy, plan on a trip to the hardware store. The threads you must connect to are rough and not cut especially well, something that seems common on items from China, so you definitely need to have teflon tape or plumber’s putty handy. On my unit, the hose connections to the shower head leak badly at both ends. Not that big a deal since it’s intended as a shower, just an annoyance. And, the shower head male threads are a bit short, so one end of the hose would screw on far enough to not leak too badly, but the other end would spray water all over the place until I reversed the hose. Then it just leaked at the water output of the heater. The hose connection (another nice included item) didn’t have a rubber gasket.

As far as heating water, it works pretty well. My input water is at about 50 degrees, and with the water flow turned all the way down and the gas flow all the way up, it got hot enough to be uncomfortable.

Until a slight wind blew out the flame. Be sure to plan to use this unit someplace very well protected from the wind. Even a slight breeze, about 10 MPH (guesstimate), will blow out the flame, give you a slug of cold water, and require you to turn the switch off and back on to relight the flame.

I haven’t played with it enough to be sure, but my impression is that the unit won’t hold a constant temperature of water output. I mention this because it may require you to use the unit in a place where you can actually reach the controls during use to adjust the temperature of your shower.

Even with the shortcomings, I recommend the unit as a camping or backup water heater. For the price, you can’t go too far wrong. Just keep it within reach and out of the wind.

Review by R. Fairbanks:

Greetings!

I have a lot to say about the L5 as I am pushing the limits of its functionality; I have been using it daily for the past six weeks, completely off-grid, and am thrilled to have it! To distill the following details into a few words:

Pros: A Godsend for someone completely off-grid, living under extreme conditions! There is nothing else available like it (that I could find).

Cons: It is designed to minimize any risks, no matter how used–thus limiting its versatility and, possibly, its long-term reliability, though it has functioned perfectly for the past six weeks.

The following notes are in four parts:

- Installation (where I have it installed)

- Operation (how it must be set up under such conditions)

- Praise

- Concerns

Installation:

I am using the L5 completely off-grid. It is inside a custom-built, remote-camping, clear polycarbonate trailer that was built to test the infrastructure of the Lotus Dome ( LotusDome dot com ). The trailer is currently at an elevation of 7,500 feet in the mountains of Utah. The temperature range here can get above 100 degreesF during the summer and can get down to well below zero during the winter. Great conditions for testing purposes!

The roof of the trailer holds a custom, 218-gallon, aluminum water tank (it needs to be on the roof to keep ice from clogging the drain). The drain feeds down to the L5 which is suspended about six inches beneath the tank. A 12VDC SHURflo Nautilus pump is mounted directly beneath the L5 pumping water up into the l5’s water intake fitting.

Operation:

To get this pump to work under these conditions requires very strict installation and operation, as the Nautilus pump is rated at 1GPM, 10 PSI, max.:

- The pump must be installed directly under the L5’s water intake fitting.

- The set screw for adjusting the pressure needed to open the L5 diaphragm (located under the right side of the water regulator, pointing straight down), which controls whether the L5 will ignite or not, needs to be unscrewed (i.e. “backed out”) until water starts to drip out around the screw. The screw is then re-tightened about one-half turn.

- The L5 water regulator (the dial on the right side of the front panel of the L5) needs to be turned fully clockwise–to the “MIN” setting

In setting up the L5, I have discovered–through repeated trial and error–that the L5 WILL NOT IGNITE if these conditions are not met. To reiterate: if the pump is not _immediately_ below the L5, pumping up into it; if the set screw is not backed out to minimize the required water pressure; and if the Water Regulator dial is not set all the way clockwise to the “MIN” setting, the L5 will NOT ignite. This is my experience, “your mileage may vary.” (It may be possible to remove the spring that controls the diaphragm, but I have not tried to do so.)

Praise:

The L5, when functioning as intended, is a spectacular unit; there is no other water heater that can generate 37.5K BTUs worth of hot water in such a compact, portable unit. It has no competition; it is a Godsend for me. The L5 with a 12VDC Nautilus pump is perfect for my showering needs, pumping a minimum amount of water through the L5 and out through a Zodi shower head–at one-half gallon per minute!–provides a wonderful amount of water, at a very comfortable pressure and temperature. It even has a drain for use in sub-freezing temperatures!

Pumping much less water through the L5 than it is designed to handle, results in water that is _much_ hotter than when using the included shower head. This is a great help when the water is at or below 32 degreesF (and, yes, this is possible if the water is flowing) and, of course, it then also uses much less water and much less propane!

It has also been noted (and often not favorably) that the control unit will shut the burners off after seventeen minutes. I, too, was very concerned about this. However, after talking to John at GES, he confirmed what is stated in the user’s manual: “[the timer] is reset each time operation stops or the shower head is turned off and back on.” What this means is that if, during your shower, the burners are suddenly turned off by the timer, you need only turn the On/Off switch (under the unit) off and then immediately back on again, and the burners will immediately fire back up. I tried this out a few times and found that if you just quickly turn the L5 off and back on again, you will have just a very few seconds of _slightly_ cooler water and then the water temperature is restored. It really became a non-issue for me . . .

Concerns:

That the Nautilus pump can push water through the L5 at a very comfortable (I would say “luxurious”!) rate and pressure–when used with the one-half-gallon-per-minute Zodi shower head–causes me to feel that the unit is too restrictive with its safety features. The many safety features compromise the L5 when used in conditions where its reliability is essential. Out in the field, “simple” is very important and in this regard, Zodi is king! (FYI, I found that the use of a 12VDC water pump that produces 45 PSI will either blow the fuse of the line supplying power to the pump–due to turning the L5 water regulator down so far–or it will generate an very unpleasant amount of water pressure . . . and waste a lot of water.)

The entire control system for the L5 could have been replaced with one push-button igniter and two sentences in the user’s manual (and thus also reducing the price of the L5):

- Do not ignite the burners until water is flowing freely from the output fitting, and

- Do not stop the flow of water until the burners have been turned off and the water is cool to the touch.

This is why I was, and remain, a very strong fan of the Zodi products: they make very reliable (and very highly regarded!) products and their user’s manuals are very clear and concise. If they made a 30K BTU version of the HotTap HP (I suggested they call it the “HotTap HP3″), I would not have found the L5.

As I have to import water from a distant town, it is imperative that I conserve water; I go through approximately 200 gallons per month, for all my water needs, including showering every day. Zodi’s shower head uses one-half gallon of water per minute and is the lowest-flow shower head that I have ever found. One of my biggest concerns about the L5 is that the L5 provides such luxurious showers, I have difficulty turning it off and end up using more water than I normally would!

—-

For those of you who waded through this tome, blessings to you and to all your loved ones!

Review by A. Zerkle:

Im sad to report that I gave this to my trucker friend who was here overnight. She plugged it in as instructed it worked ONCE and stopped. Please if you have a friend that drives buy a higher quality product than this one. It was so bad that I didn’t even exchange it… threw it out.

Review by J. Wisniewski:

I purchased this for my truck in hopes of having hot cocoa on the road. I was extrememly disappointed. It barely heated the water to luke warm.

Review by B. Ensley:

I used this heater last summer, for washing dishes, and showers while boat camping. Heater works off a propane canister, so have extras of those. Pump depends on a small battery that has its own compartment. I carried a spare battery out of caution, but didn’t need it on my longest trip of three nights with three people. I would guess 6-7 short showers were taken, along with washing dishes and hand washings during meal prep.

Easy to use. Variable temp. control, from cold to scalding just like a water tap at home, (though a much lower pressure) The water gets hot very quickly.

Instructions say not to use lake or stream water. I decided that applies if you are going to use the heater for cooking or drinking water. Since I use mine only for dish-washing/hand-wahing/showering, I ignored this instruction. There is an attachment for hooking to a garden hose, but I didn’t get this as I don’t camp where potable water is avialable. If you camp with kids, once it is used with non-potable water, I stongly recommend that you make sure they understand that they are not to drink water from the tap.

I found that a large three gallon collapsable bucket was much handier than the collapable container supplied.

As I remember, I purchased the shower attachment seperately. After our first camp trip with the heater, I replaced the hose on the shower attachment with a longer piece of plastic tubing bought at the hardware store, as the original tube was too short to work well. This was real easy to do and not very expensive and I would recommend it if you are more than four feet tall and want to use the heater for showers.

This is unit is not for pack-backing. But it you car camp or boat camp away from hot water and like the luxury of running hot water, this is a great unit. Not that heavy and and no bigger than a small cooler.

I have a Zodi which I used before I got this. The Zodi does a good job of heating water and is somewhat lighter and more compact. I like the Coleman better however. The swing-out spout on the Coleman may look like a gimmick, but if your are washing dishes over a dishpan it realy is an advantage. The instant on/off feature of the Coleman is a also great advantage

especially when showering. You can rinse off, shut off the water, soap up and turn on the water for a final rinse with just a turn of a dial. Since even three gallons of water goes fast, the ease of shutting off the unit “in between” is very handy. With the Zodi the best approach I found was to put the shower-head in the water supply “in between.” This works, but it means the burner is continuing to run, using fuel, and if your are not quick, the water can get hotter than you may want. (Shuting off the Zodi means you have to get out the lighter or matches to relight, which can be a pain if you are wet and soapy.) With the Colman’s built in igniter, a simple turn of the dial gets every thing going again. By the way, so far the igniter has worked as flawlessly as the one on the gas range top at home. You turn the dial, you hear a little “swoosh” as the burner comes on, and you have hot water.

I also bought the carry case which I recommend.

Review by Just Like Gizmos:

I have been surviving camping quite well for 4 yrs. by heating water on a high-powered propane stove and using a battery-powered shower head for bathing. Then one day I looked at a Zodi water heater and started researching what was available. All I can say is the Coleman Hot Water On Demand is slick and that’s the one I chose. The way the spout tucks away into the handle along with the quick response by just turning a dial is simply jaw-dropping. Even water for a cup of coffee can be had by holding the dial temporarily at its hottest setting. The last couple of years I have been looking for some shortcuts so that I have time for some additional activities, and this is ia milestone. No more doing dishes and showers late at night because I wasn’t around enough to heat water earlier. I can make quicker camping set-ups by using this device. I can even give my horse warm baths after he’s done working. I’ll probably get through half a year on one propane bottle and battery charge. One thing did happen: I first purchased a unit that failed to charge properly even after a long period of time (the green light would only come on if I used the DC adapter – even after that was green, if I plugged in the AC adapter, it would go back to red – maybe a bad AC adapter?). This was probably just a fluke, and I ended up returning it — the second unit was fully charged within 10 minutes! I have to be careful since rechargeable units and I don’t always get along. I think this device will make my most favorites list along with my LED, remote-controlled lantern. The people I camp with have sophisticated trailers and I’ve been keeping up very well even though my trailer is smaller and “primitive”. Since they don’t let their hot-water heaters run all the time, they have to wait about half an hour until their water heater gets up to speed before they can take a shower. I won’t tell them if you don’t that I have hot water in 5 seconds! It will probably be noticed, though, when I show up all spiffy in a fraction of what it used to take.

Review by Mark W. Ingalls:

When I first opened the package, I was…

…whelmed.

The padded gear bag’s plastic liner is brittle. It cracked and wouldn’t hold water after the first week. The heating element is merely a coil of soft copper tubing poked into a sheet-metal box. The D-cell-powered 1/4-scale model sump pump caused laughter.

It works.

We now take showers inside our pop-up truck camper *in the winter*. We use the existing 12V water pump by force-fitting the input hose over the sink faucet while the heater is on the stove burner. When the water is really cold, we have to cycle the pump on and off (not recommended by the instructions, but then neither is using the thing inside on my inside stove, right?)

I could probably rig one up with ~ in hardware. But it would take half a day or more and probably look like a kluge. So, for a hundred extra bucks I get to have a camping shower that works.

Fair enough, at least it works.

EDIT: Somebody just taught me how to use a garden variety tank sprayer, filled with warm water, as a camp shower. This is such a better idea, that I am abandoning this piece of equipment and moving to the tank sprayer. Just sayin’…