When it comes to water management, you’re going to be using water for 4 things: hydration, cooking, cleaning, and hygiene. Hydration is straightforward, and shouldn’t be changed. Drink when you’re thirsty, and if you’re being active, drink BEFORE you’re thirsty. When it comes to hygiene and cleaning, there is room for a lot of savings! And as for cooking, there are techniques and tricks to reduce water use there, too.
Water Management: Hygiene
This may gross some people out, but you don’t need to shower every day. Even with a low-flow showerhead that’s rated at 1 gallon per minute, it’s going to use 5 gallons for a quick 5-minute shower. That’s 5 days of drinking water! Other ways to stay clean, that don’t use up all the water include
- Washcloths
- Disposable wet wipes
- Swimming in a lake or river
Honestly, as long as you’re not pouring sweat, covered in mud and oil, or otherwise filthy, the only daily cleaning one typically needs is the face, feet, armpits, and bathing suit area.
The other big use of water is the toilet. RV toilets can use up to a gallon per flush! However, composting toilets, also known as dry toilets, use no water. Since the poop is what makes a black tank black, that also eliminates the need for that, too, lightening your rig, and opening more space for other storage.
Water Management: Cleaning
When we cook, we inevitably make dishes. Washing dishes can use a lot of water! But there are several strategies you can use to minimize it:
- Reusing soapy water for every meal of the day.
- Disposable plates and utensils (great fire starter).
- Wipe off the grease then spray with diluted vinegar instead of soap and water.
- Use cast-iron cookware. Minimal water to clean.
- Cauldron stew. Just keep a pot simmering, adding new stuff every day for the duration of your trip. Kept hot over coals, it will be safe to eat and tasty. Not recommended for Bear Country (or use a crock pot indoors if you have plenty of power).
When you do wash, think conservatively. Soap and scrub most of your dishes before moving on to rinse. Rinse with as little water as possible.
Laundry is another concern. Here, laundromats are your best friend. If you absolutely have to do your own, though, look into a machine like the Lavario manual washer. It takes no power and can wash two-four outfits with very little water (that you control). A more cost-effective way for one person is to use a bucket and a plunger.
Water Management: Cooking
Your main saving with cooking is adjusting how you cook foods that you boil: beans, rice, and pasta.
Beans
There are two roads when it comes to beans: dry or canned. Canned beans are going to be the most cost-effective when it comes to water and energy management, as they require no extra water, and are already cooked during the canning process. However, they weigh a lot more than dried.
For dried beans, you need to soak them to rehydrate, then stew them to cook them. A lot of recipes that call for dried beans encourage you to discard the soaking water and use fresh for cooking. However, that’s not necessary. The soaking water does leach some sugars from the beans that are considered to be responsible for beans’ more “musical” nature but is perfectly safe to use for cooking. After all, we are already outside and away from society.
By reusing the water you’re already saving a lot of water.
Water Management: The Other Side…
A lot of what we’ve talked about to this point has been minimizing the use of fresh water. However, more often than not, a rig’s wastewater storage is much less than its freshwater storage. Even our rig, Tad Cooper, only has 150 gallons of divided wastewater storage, vs the 200 gallons of fresh water. Some things you can do to avoid filling those tanks too fast include
- Wash your dishes outside, and empty the dirty water onto the roots of deserving plants.
- Shower outside.
- Men can easily take certain “business” to the local flora as well.
- Use grey water to fully extinguish your campfires when you’re getting ready to break camp.
Obviously, some of these you won’t be able to do in all situations, and always check your local rules and regulations before discharging any wastewater. Stay safe, stay legal, and happy boondocking!