Posted: 8/9/2025 8:02:16 AM EDT
| My wife's niece is a missionary in South America. She runs an orphanage and has been doing it for several years now. She likes what she does a lot. A couple of things. She buys filtered water and does not have hot water in her house. I want to send her some stuff. Is there a fairly compact water filter ? I was thinking about a solar shower but is there some sort of small water heater idea that would work for household use ? I am going to buy her some stuff for the kids and ship her a care package . Any other ideas are welcome. I am going to send her some OTC kids meds as well . I will take ideas on those also. |
RIP Jeff Reed. Tennessee Squire, Ga. Carry member, NRA,Non-puking 72 ounce drinker 2 of 6 Norcal call sign, Forgotten.
| Depending on where in South America (it's a large continent that spans a lot of different climates), I would go with a few solar camping showers. Most are around 5 gallons, but I don't know if she can lift 40 pounds up to hook it high up, so you might want to get some of the battery powered shower head ones (and maybe a small solar panel and charger to recharge the batteries). |
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For the water filter they gravity feed Katadins are tough to beat. They filter around a liter a minute and come in sizes from 3-10 liters depending on her needs. A couple of spare filter cartridges shoukd see her to roughly 400k liters and I would toss in a ton of coffee filters for use as pre filters. As far as OTC meds go it’s hard to beat the basics of Tylenol, ibuprofen and Bayer Asprin. After that almoat any OTC meds will be of use. I have a friend who every time they hu t in Africa, they take a huge duffel do stuff. They watch every store they go to in the mark down section for meds and vitamins that they can grab cheap. They go over every year almost and they are able to gather a great mix of stuff this way. |
| Thanks guys . My first idea was the solar shower. She is in Peru and way out in the sticks. They do have electricity on some level. I was told the local hospital does not even have AC |
RIP Jeff Reed. Tennessee Squire, Ga. Carry member, NRA,Non-puking 72 ounce drinker 2 of 6 Norcal call sign, Forgotten.
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I haven't looked lately but i believe the sawyer filter product line is aimed squarely at this use case, including their virus filters. You could send a small kit and they can use buckets or barrels sourced locally to build it out. Berkey and partner companies have been marketing the resumption of filter availability also. Something you see in the middle east is the widespread use of black polyethylene water storage tanks to capture solar heat. Solar water heaters can be made from coils of black poly pipe. Is the availability of electricity leading you to assume Solar power is less relevant? For example, The EG4 Heat Pump product line can directly input both or either AC and solar DC and could make HVAC viable for the hospital. It might make small projects more viable, for example small circulating pumps or filling gravity filter systems. |
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There are portable LP water heaters with a 12v pump. Does she have LP available? Would she be able to charge batteries? https://www.eccotemp.com/l5-portable-outdoor-tankless-water-heater-type-2-final-sale/ https://www.homedepot.com/p/Eccotemp-L5-1-5-GPM-Portable-37-500-BTU-Liquid-Propane-Outdoor-Tankless-Water-Heater-L5/205574393?g_store=137&source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&fp=ggl |
I love a good double entendre.