Review: OVS Nomadic Car Side Shower Room
Being able to take a shower and use the toilet comfortably while camping shouldn’t be considered a luxury. Getting clean while in the wild can help extend trips. Having a toilet with privacy allows everyone at camp to take care of business without the anxiety. The Overland Vehicle Systems‘ Nomadic Car Side Shower Room is a roof-mounted, fold-out shower room that adds the comfort of privacy to your camping setup.
The Verdict:
The OVS Nomadic Shower Room stores away conveniently on your roof rack much like a traditional awning, such as the OVS Nomadic Awning. When unfolded, it’s smart, spacious, and thoughtful. It’s smart due to its adjustable straps to accommodate various vehicle heights and weighted bottoms to help keep its shape. With 3.5ft by 3.5 ft of interior space, it’s spacious enough to not crowd your shower or toilet activity. Its double interior pouches, velcro showerhead strap, and double-sided entry zipper will have you wondering how the designers thought of it all. The build and materials of the OVS shower room are outstanding, it’s effortless to set up and take down, and the price makes it a no-brainer addition to any overlanding configuration.
Design:
The design of the OVS Shower Room is very similar to the OVS 270 Awning, featuring a thick, black, zippered cover for protection when stowed. The four walls of the shower room are made of 420D Oxford Rip Stop fabric and are grey in color. The support arms are made of aluminum, create a strong foundation for the shower room to hang from, and are easily extended and locked in place for use. The zippers feel solid and a double-sided entry zipper on the back of the shower room makes it easy to get in and out. The pouches and the velcro showerhead strap are nice touches.
Privacy:
The OVS Shower Room helps to keep your shower or toilet time discreet. The walls are fully opaque to ensure that the angle of the sun doesn’t create embarrassing silhouettes. The shower room adjusts to a maximum of 76″. If mounted on the roof of a lifted vehicle, you may need every inch, but if your vehicle isn’t as high, the adjustable straps can be shortened.
Each wall of the OVS shower room contains a weighted structural rod in its bottom horizontal. This added weight prevents the square room from easily collapsing. In our testing, the shower room held its shape well in moderate wind. If the winds pick up, the corners can be staked down to stay in place. Four stakes along with a carrying bag are included with the OVS Shower Room.
Durability:
Because the OVS Shower Room will only be deployed while out at the campsite, the 1000G PVC Travel Cover will take the majority of the abuse. The cover and its zipper seem up to the task. They look good on your vehicle and look to be strong.
The shower room walls are thick (primarily to prevent the aforementioned silhouetting) and should last longer than you’ll have your vehicle. The aluminum folding arms are more than up to the task of holding up the shower room, while also remaining lightweight. My only concern about the build of this unit would be the nylon straps. Straps like these have a history of breaking down when exposing the sun for too long. Even if this is the case, the straps should only see the sun in limited doses when in service. The vast majority of the time, the travel cover will be blocking sunlight to all other components.
Setup & Pack Away:
The OVS Shower Room is a breeze to set up – taking only seconds. Unzip the travel cover to expose the folding arms and fabric walls. As unzipped, the walls easily “unroll” to the ground. Fold the aluminum arms outward to lock them into place. The only hiccup we had in our experiences with setting this up is that the bottom of the walls can be a little awkward to get into a square shape. The bottom weighted rods don’t always allow for the walls to unfold naturally and they need a bit of manual coaxing. That’s it. With the shower room set up, the room is ready to be used for showering, using the toilet, changing, or whatever other private activity you choose.
Packing the OVS Shower Room away is equally easy. Unlock the aluminum arms and folded them back into place. Next, fold the four bottoms of the walls flat into each other. Folding the bottom of the walls is important as this serves as the beginning of your roll of the walls back into the case. Finally, roll up and secure the walls zipping the travel cover around them.
The OVS Nomadic Car Side Shower Room (that’s a mouthful) is easy to deploy and easy to store. It’s a product with a simple purpose and it has a simple design as a result.
Best Features:
- We love the weighted bottoms of the walls which help keep the shower room structurally.
- The front (carside) of the shower room has a zippered section that can lower the front wall to gain easy access to items stored on your vehicle.)
- The 2 interior pouches are great for storing toiletries or toilet paper.
- We are really fond of the look. The black, grey, and aluminum color scheme looks great on our trailer.
Have an OVS Nomadic Car Side Shower Tent? Do you love it? We’d love to hear your opinions in the comments.
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