Weekly/Daily water use

[kr105]

Sat down and figured out how much water will really be needed and I'm reeling! I'm in healthcare so I can't stay home from work and that means I'll need to take a shower at the minimum, every other day. At 3 gallons per shower = 9 gallons. Then there is drinking and cooking/cleaning at 2 gallons/day. If I need to use water in the toilet tank for flushing, assume 3 flushes a day at 1.5 gallons each --- ouch! So here are the #s:


Weekly Water Needs (per person)

9 gallons --- Shower using 3 gallons (to wash hair also) x 3 per week
14 gallons --- Drinking and cooking using 2 gallons per day x 7 days
23 gallons --- Weekly Requirement -- Not including toilets
+
32 gallons --- Toilet flush assuming 1.5 gallons x 3 flushes /day

55 gallons per week -- per person (ouch!)

Some "grey" water - from showers/washing - could be recycled for toilet use. At this point, I'm ordering in a few boxes of "wag bags" for the PETT portable toilet. If we loose all water, then it's over to the pett to conserve what's stored.

 

[Goju]

Re: Weekly/Daily water use

You need a renewable source that you can "clean".

There's no way anyone can store whats needed (except in the ole swimming pool - I've got 18,000 gallons)

 

[prepdeb]

Re: Weekly/Daily water use

KR,

If it was possible for you to shower at work, you'd be able to cut the usage down a lot.

Gross as it sounds, if you use the "If it's yellow, let it mellow - If it's brown, flush it down" method, you'd save a lot on toilet flushing.

My inlaws enforce that at their lake cabin and it grossed me out, but may be necessary.

Deb

 

[Bruce]

Re: Weekly/Daily water use

This just came to my mind from the first post.

If one can/could tap into the shower drain one could collect it and use it for toilet flushing.
Well that wont work as if you had pressurized water you would have plenty of it, so try 2

If you save your sponge bath water you can use it to flush. So if you don?t have a tub by now you should get one, the cheapest one would be a piggish plastic mortar mixing (is it called) bucket or barrel. from the tub you could try to save the water by disconnecting and re directing the drainage (get the needed parts in advance).

 

[Ruby Fameth]

Re: Weekly/Daily water use

Okay, I've got to ask it: if we can filter stream and lake water, can we also filter waste water? Once you make the sand/gravel/charcoal filter along the lines of katadyn or miox, can you filter urine for drinking water? Mind you, no way do I want to do this. I just figured it's not as bad to start with as the water in the nearby creek which gets runoff from who knows what.

 

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: Weekly/Daily water use

Hi Ruby, I don't believe I have welcomed you here to FluTrackers yet.

You could filter out urine if absolutely necessary. You would still have to boil the liquid after allowing it to pass first thorugh a sand filter then through charcoal filters. Or, you could pass through the original sand and charcoal filters then through a katadyne (sp) or other tabletop filter.

 

[Pfwag]

Re: Weekly/Daily water use

Ruby - you can convert raw sewer water into pure drinking water but the effort is probably not worth it. Find a different source of (cleaner) raw water.

If you have power available, the easiest and best way to convert nearly any water into almost pure dinking water is to use a distiller. Takes a lot of power for 1G though.

Here is a link for some low cost, low pressure emergency filters that also contains a LOT of additional info:
http://www.premium-water-filters.com/emergency_disinfection.htm

I have all sorts of info on water and water treatment. Let me know if you want to know anything specific.