This might come as a surprise to most of you, but you use a lot more water than you think you do. For instance, the EPA states that the average American family uses more than 300 gallons of water per day at home! Compare that to the 46 gallon fresh water tank we have, and you can imagine why we would want to conserve our water!
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Here are 14 tips to help you save water while you’re living in an RV (or for any situation where you need to conserve water):
Showers/Toilet
I don’t know about you, but before we started our RV journey, I had no idea what Navy showers were. Basically it goes like this: Take 10-15 seconds to get wet, then turn off the water. Lather up, turn the water back on, take 10-15 seconds to rinse. That’s it. If you need to wash your hair or shave, then add an extra rinse and lather cycle in there. Our RV came with a shower head with an on/off switch, so we don’t actually turn the water off, just the flow through the shower head.Â
Okay, I realize that not every family can do this or is comfortable doing this, but if you have young children of the same gender close in age, bathing them together not only saves time but also water. We will typically fill the tub with a couple inches of water (just enough to cover the baby’s legs) and then use the shower head to hose them down. They get to play in a bit of water and you get to clean two kids at once. Win-win.
#3 Forgo the daily shower
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on now. There is no way I can give up my daily shower! How do you even stay clean if you don’t shower daily?! Trust me on this one, unless you are in the midst of a plague or some other highly infectious outbreak, you’ll survive without that daily shower. There are other ways to stay clean, such as rubbing yourself down with a damp washcloth, or using those camper specific body wipes.Â
#4 Take advantage of campgrounds/family/friends
If the campground you are staying at has a shower house that is clean and modern, use it (but don’t forget your shower shoes). If you are moochdocking, aka parking in a family member’s or friend’s driveway, ask them nicely if you can use their shower. Unlimited hot water is a luxury that we do not take for granted.
#5 Shower at truck stops or gyms
Neither of these options is free, but if you are in need of a long, hot shower then it might be worth it to pay for a shower at a truck stop. Also, if you have a gym membership that spans across the States you can always stop in there to grab a quick shower.
#6 Invest in a composting toilet
What is a composting toilet, you ask? It’s a waterless toilet system that separates liquids from solids, typically mixing the solids with some sort of inert material to create compost. We replaced our RV toilet with a Nature’s Head composting toilet, which mixes solids with peat moss or coconut coir. We’ll have a review, along with an explanation on how we modified the toilet, in a future post.
Dishes
#7 Wash dishes once per day
Washing dishes uses more water than you think. To minimize the amount of water we use to wash the dishes, we only do them once a day.Â
#8 Save water from the shower to wash the dishes in
Here’s a tip I learned from another RVer: While your shower water is warming up, capture that precious fresh water in a pail or other container to use for washing dishes instead of letting it go right down the drain.
#9 Use disposable paper/plastic products
One of the points for living a more simple, minimal lifestyle is to produce as little waste as possible. However, if we are severely limited on water, we have no issues using paper plates/bowls and plastic forks/spoons to minimize the amount of dishes we have to clean.
Drinking Water
#10 Use an inline water filtration system
We always filter the water we put into our fresh water tank, even when hooked up to city water. We use a water filter between our hose and the inlet to our tank, but I know many RVers also have a filter on their faucet or under their sink. You never know the quality (or lack thereof) of the water you are getting. Just because the sign says “potable” doesn’t mean it won’t taste like dirty dirt (if that makes sense) or look like orange dye was added to it (hint: it’s not orange dye).
#11 Use a table top water filtration system
This typically comes in the form of a pitcher that you can leave in your fridge or something like the popular Berkey filtration system.
#12 Bottled Water
Bottled water gets a bad rap, especially since we see so much of the plastic in our oceans and water ways. But bottled water can be a lifesaver when it comes to conserving the water in our fresh water tank.
Cooking
#13 Use a grill or cook over an open fire
Grilling typically uses less water than the typical meal. It also mean fewer dishes, since we almost always use foil to cook our vegetables in, instead of a pot of water.
#14 Cook in bulk
We have a standard RV fridge in our home, but most newer RVs come equipped with residential style refridgerators. If you have the space, cook large meals or multiple meals in one shot and store the leftovers in your fridge or freezer. Cooking less often means fewer dishes to clean.
Well there you have it. Most of the tips above we use every day to save on our water usage, meaning we can boondock (aka dry camp) for longer periods of time without worrying about running out of water or having to dump our grey tanks as often. So far we’ve gone up to ten days without refilling our fresh water tank. Do you have some go-to water saving tips? Share them with us below!
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