Conservation

Water is gold. Here in the semi arid West even more so. Wasting it is a crime, an act of incredible ignorance and likely the beginning of the inevitable unraveling of modern society.

We felt it was time to rethink our usage of this precious commodity when turning our back on conventional housing with all sorts of mechanized appliances cycling through unseen gallons from underground pipes. Did we really need to shower every day and take luxurious 70 gallon baths? Did the faucet HAVE to run while rinsing dishes? That desirable desert lawn started to look as ugly as an oozing pimple on a teenager's face. Even cooking noodles, the Italian way, is a waste of water!

Camping conditions are the baseline for comfort and convenience that we have adopted. With the right set-up, we have lived out of a pick-up truck for months on end, thru the changing seasons, with the bare minimum of commodities. We cruise on a very basic sailboat all summer, with no electricity, sink or head. These times are stimulating and invigorating. Why not go on like that? Raise the comfort level a notch or two, make a few details a little easier, but keep it simple.

Here at home we are not filling our water bottles at the service station or going for weeks just bathing in the ocean, but our water system is still conceived after basic boat or camper principles. This makes conservation easy and natural, teaches us that to have enough water to get us through the work week some preparations must be done first.

Basic system profile

It will not work for everybody, let's just say that, and it's still not without its issues.

The well has a stand alone PV-direct solar pump. The cabin has a 50 gallon water tank. Between the two: a subterranean pipe and some standard sediment filters.

When the tank needs filling, one finds a sunny day, flips the switch on the solar panel and watches the sun doing its work until the tank is full again.

Inside the cabin we have two 12V pumps sucking water out of the tank and delivering it to the desired destinations. There's also a manual option for cloudy winter days.

Hot water, that decadent notion we demand at will, is produced by putting a pot on the stove.

System details & comments

The Shurflo 600 well pump and associated 125 watt solar panel has been great. It is a completely self contained system without batteries, working at 24 volt. When the sun shines you can pump, that's it. Maximum flow is a about one gallon per minute. Between the panel and pump is a linear something booster deal that enable the pump to keep going, ever so slowly, during cloudy periods. Because of the way our system is set up, with very intermittent pumping of relatively short duration but at specific times, I think we could have done fine without the complexity of the booster deal.
We devised a manual solar tracker making it possible to orient the panel into direct sunlight when it is time to fill our house tank.

Between the well and cabin run the only excavation work that required mechanized digging here at CoyoteCottage, namely a relatively shallow 225' trench for waterlines. (Sorry, besides the driveway and well). I certainly tried hard to envision a way to transport water, summer and winter this distance without digging through precious native plants. Alas, no bright plan descended on me, short of hauling buckets which is certainly a viable option and often seen throughout more interesting parts of the world. Anyway, wishing a less physical method we rented a tiny Kubota for 2 days. The short arm of the backhoe reached only to 3', woefully short of frost depth.

We inherited an old on-demand water heater from a neighbor, but found that to work properly it required more additional plumbing than we wanted to deal with. In other words, the convenience of instant hot water could not breach our oath to simplicity. But this well used appliance found another, better suited family to scald. For bathing we like our stock pot on a dedicated burner, proudly sitting next to the tub. Compare that to the pipes, coils and valves, the regular maintenance and replacement of parts, all with the high cost of regular appliances, and I think we're coming out alright.

In fact, nowhere in the cabin is there plumbing for hot water. Dishes are easily dispensed with using cold water, if meat and frying is not on the menu, which it isn't most of the time. For those special hamburger nights, we just heat a pint on the stove. We really truly don't feel compromised by the lack of running hot water, and the savings in infrastructure is immense.

Advantages to a RV-type system in the cabin

Cost of components is low, reliability is high, and maintenance is a snap.

No frost issues. Outside pipes are drained immediately after their occasional brief usage, leaving all water carrying implements inside the heated envelope of the cabin.

Going away in the winter? Simply empty the tank and leave. No need to look for house sitters or otherwise heat the cabin, just to keep the pipes from freezing.

Cleanliness and maintenance. Everything is out in the open. The whole system can be taken apart in 30 minutes with a minimum of tools. The moveable 50 gallon tank is easily dragged out and cleaned on the deck. Try that with a permanently installed pressure tank. All our pipes are vinyl hoses with screw-together plastic fittings, simple to inspect and clean. The pumps we use in the cabin are marine quality Shurflo diaphragm pumps, which after 5 years has required no maintenance at all. But if they did, it is easy to do.