According to wiki, a normal ten minute shower uses as much as 60 gallons of water. This means that the water tank of an boat or an RV(*) will be exhausted after a single shower. Therefore we’ll have to adopt to some kind of Navy shower.

The thing I don’t like about Navy showers is having to turn the water off again to soap up. I’m just not ready for that kind of self-imposed discomfort in the morning. Thus I have devised a different kind of system.

(*) DW has been quite resistive about the Tumbleweed homes but surprisingly accepting of the RV idea and given that we don’t live next to a large body of water, the RV seems to be the better option, so now we’re looking at RVs.

I took an empty shampoo bottle and filled it with water. Before I turn the water on, this is used to make my hair wet after which I can use the shampoo. Then I turn the water on. Compared to a Navy shower this means I only turn the water on once (filling the shampoo bottle doesn’t count ). This works because being an office dweeb I don’t get dirty and thus there’s no need for massive scrubbing/use of soap.

For now I am interested in seeing whether this actually saves us any water. I am also interested in seeing whether DW will prove resistive, take it as a challenge, or just ignore my heroism Shower “fascism” seems to be a popular choice for people saving money and it usually ends with massive disagreements despite not really saving much money (**). One thing I’ve found is that if you want it, you will find solutions to make it work. If you don’t want it, you’ll find excuses why it wouldn’t work. This leaves you without solutions and failure results as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

(**) It saves non-renewable ground water resources more than 15,000 gallons a year, but we’re a couple of decades away from “peak water”, so water is still cheap. Therefore to save money it makes a lot more sense to focus on the size of the house and the size of the car first.

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Originally posted 2008-06-11 16:55:52.