Water, water everywhere

Our water consumption versus the average American

It’s been more than two weeks now living in this tiny, 50-square-foot space, and we are both surprising ourselves by how comfortable we feel. This house is a total work-in-progress and yet we feel so “at home” here.

However, for the past 2 days it has been pouring buckets of rain.

Both my car and the trailer have been getting a much needed rinsing, but I kept waking up in the middle of the night imagining that a particularly distinct raindrop was someone tapping at the window, or that a pine cone falling on the roof was someone knocking at the door. This campground is deserted. This tiny house I’m living in — thankfully — has no obvious leaks. Despite these two facts, I have not been getting much sleep lately. Instead, I get to see the early morning mist rolling over the tops of trees.

I’ve been spending time at the library again.

In doing my research I’ve found that the average person living in the USA uses 700 gallons of water per week. According to this figure Michael and I would have used almost as much water as this water truck holds:

Instead, we used about 20 gallons of water for our combined cooking and cleaning duties:

This does not include the 2 coin-operated showers we took at local state parks (about 10 minutes each, or a total of around $4.00) and the 1 large load of laundry I did at the laundromat the other day (about $5.00)… or the toilets we’ve flushed along the way. Still, I think it’s pretty impressive.

Despite our makeshift solutions for washing things (dishes, clothes, bodies) we are going to need some more long term solutions if we decide to live like this for a while. Michael and I, both amenable to doing the dishes, now dislike the chore in our tiny kitchen.

Please pass along any ideas for washing clothes, portable showers, and easy cooking cleanup.