Don’t get me wrong, we adore Gandalf, but one of the more annoying features was definitely not having hot water on demand. If we want a hot shower, it was a case of boiling the gas kettle, unless it was hot enough for the solar shower bag to do its thing. The kettle situation was time consuming and didn’t give brilliantly hot results. More of a faff but we’ve coped well without hot water. Until now!

We’ve had our eye on the Joolca Hottap system for a couple of years but couldn’t never seem to find one with a camping gas connector rather than Calor. The. One day, I happened upon the website and voila, they’d launched a version which would work with our camping gas 907 bottles.

HOTTAP Essentials Kit

Whilst it was a bit pricey to purchase, they offer a good pay in 3 installments option, and after much chat, we decided to go for it.

The delivery was quick and we were itching to get out and try it.

The Hottap system is clever. You hook one tube from the ‘boiler’ to a gas bottle, one goes inside our 20l Jerry can and then there is a long lead to take the 12v plug to the 12v receiver plug in the van.

Once you press the button on the shower hear the boiler ignites, you can see how hot it goes – ours went to 50 degrees! And almost instantly you’re rewarded with piping hot water.

The pressure is great and the hand held shower head gives great water flow. The boiler itself sits on a small table outside the shower tent. The cables and leads are so long, they cause no problems reaching a distance into the van.

We could not be happier with the product. It’s completly changed the way we can Motorhome and foresee even in the autumn months being able to off grid and use this piping hot shower. It was also used successfully to fill my washing up bowl with boiling water in which to wash up with.

Once we’re finished it packs away neatly into the storage bag which then slides into the boot of our van. The camping gaz bottle we already have in there for when we cadak cook as is the Jerry can for filling the van.

We purchased this with our own money and would not hesitate to rave about this to literally anyone who will listen. It’s a great way to get hot water inside your van. So clever and so wonderful!