You’re soaped up with your eyes shut. Someone flushes the toilet, the pressure drops for half a second, and a slug of ice water hits you square in the back. Then it goes hot again like nothing happened.
That’s the cold water sandwich, and it’s the complaint that comes up every single time somebody asks whether tankless actually belongs in an RV. Fortunately, Fogatti’s InstaShower 9 Pro is designed specifically to make the cold water sandwich a thing of the past.
Why You Get Hit With Cold Water
When water flow dips below what the burner needs to stay lit, the burner cuts out. So, the hot water already sitting in the line gets to you first, and then you’re hit with the cold water behind it, and by the time the burner relights you’ve had your three seconds of misery.
The InstaShower 9 Pro parks a small reservoir of already-heated water between the burner and your showerhead. Flow drops, the burner stumbles, and you pull from that reservoir instead of from a cold pipe. So the burner catches back up while you’re still warm, and you barely notice the handoff.
Fogatti calls it the Mix Tank, and the 9 Pro is the cheapest unit in their tankless range that has one.
Six Gallons Versus However Long You Want
A tank heater gives you six gallons of hot water, but you’re stuck waiting twenty minutes for the next six. That means everyone follows a shower order, because somebody always ends up with what’s left.
This one heats the water on its way past. 66,000 BTU of burner works on whatever you’re pulling through it, so the ceiling isn’t a reservoir anymore. Now all you’ve got to think about is your propane, so back-to-back showers aren’t a problem anymore, and you can set it anywhere from 95 to 123°F.
It Fits What You’ve Already Got
The 9 Pro needs a clear opening of 13 by 13 inches, and it drops into the standard 15 by 15 cutout that Suburban and Atwood six-gallon tanks use. That covers an enormous number of rigs on the road right now, since those two have been the standard fit for years.
Doors come in 15 by 15, 15 by 18 and 18 by 18, so whatever somebody cut into your sidewall years ago, there’s a cover that finishes it off properly.
The Rest of It
The InstaShower 9 Pro is CSA and ETL certified, which is what your insurer and plenty of campgrounds want to see. It uses 12V DC off your house battery, plus propane for the burner, and gets water into and out of a half-inch inlet and outlet. Fogatti backs it with a two-year warranty on the original parts. You also get a flow rate of 3.6 GPM, and a 0.5 GPM low-flow activation.
Freeze protection watches the internal temperature and fires the heater when it drops, so your water pathways stay above freezing while you’re parked in the cold. It needs 12V and propane in the bottle to do that, so drain it properly before you store the rig for the season.
What It Costs
You can grab the Instashower 9 Pro for $599.99 on Fogatti’s site, down from the original $799.99, and first-time buyers can take another $70 off by signing up for their early-access list.
If the hole in the side of your rig is 15 by 15, you’re one Saturday away from forgetting the shower order and just showering back-to-back without a care in the world.
