Monday, July 31, 2006

Water Conservation

It's been sixteen days since I moved on the boat. I thoroughly feel as though this is my space and place. At least as I see things now, I wouldn't give this time up for the world :)
What I have given up (or at least minimized) is showering on land ;)
In the past 16 days, I've only showered on land 3 times!
I did a quick search on the web and found a small study that was done comparing taking a bath to showering... They found taking a shower conserved more water and was more energy efficient than a bath. Their statistics included about 12 gallons water and approx. 6,100 BTUs used for a shower; and, about 21 gallons water and approx. 10,500 BTUs for a bath.
By comparison, my solar shower has a capacity of 2.5 gallons water, and I don't even use that all up most of the time... Not to mention my water is heated by the sun, so Zero BTUs drawn from the grid for that purpose ;)
Maintaining this "average rate" of 1.5 land showers every week, will save approximately 2,860 gallons of water over a year's time. Seems significant... But, in a place where the average per person per day water demand is over 300 gallons, my savings is used up by one person in about 9 days... and primarily for irrigation purposes, as opposed to basic need :(

I did have to do some modification to the boat to direct the flow of water. I borrowed Brian's drill and drilled a new opening in the fiberglass floor of the head for a new drain...
You might notice I did this just before the mast was restepped onto the keel through the much larger hole next to the drain ;) I've been using soap homemade by friend's Brian, Beth, and Vicki :)

1 comment:

Mary said...

You need to add to your personal "savings" of water the amount of water that would be your share if you were renting or had a condo and the association watered your share of the common area. Then you would be coming closer to your personal water conservation.