Water Usage

Hi All,

New member here but I am interested in what people allow for general water usage per day per person. I can hold 400litres in my tank and am looking at cruising/fishing for 10 days with a mate. Would an allowance of 20litres per day per person (Does not include drinking water as I will buy bottled water for this) be enough. I would think its just a shower every day or 2 and washing up with a bit of cooking thrown in as well. Should I carry extra drums of water but I will say space is going to be limited with all the extra onboard.

Cheers
Dave

We have a 250 gallon water tank used for daily showers, freshwater head, filtered drinking water, cooking, washing dishes, and a daily pot of coffee. At that rate it lasts the two of us a week. We could easily be more conservative to make it last longer if necessary, except for the coffee ?.

Dave, Welcome aboard, Biggusstickus. English comedian Frankie Howerd played a part in a comedy with a Roman character, with an almost similar name.
Water consumption is a personal thing, it`s amazing how little you need to shower if you wet, soap, rinse, turning the water off in between steps. Do it and see, extra in 20L containers might be a good idea. Buy your bottled water in 10L and greater containers, cheap as, at supermarkets. It`s a 38ft boat with 2 pob, there must be spare space.
I`d suggest a swim, but I see you`re in Tassie.

We have 600 litres on board Siesta and no problem with 5 guys on board for 5 days, with a shower every second day.

BruceK said:

Dave, Welcome aboard, Biggusstickus. English comedian Frankie Howerd played a part in a comedy with a Roman character, with an almost similar name.
Water consumption is a personal thing, it`s amazing how little you need to shower if you wet, soap, rinse, turning the water off in between steps. Do it and see, extra in 20L containers might be a good idea. Buy your bottled water in 10L and greater containers, cheap as, at supermarkets. It`s a 38ft boat with 2 pob, there must be spare space.
I`d suggest a swim, but I see you`re in Tassie.

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Hi Bruce,
I used to play a lot of snooker so I crossed the name with the infamous roman character in Monty Pythons "Life of Bryan" and hence the name lol.

I could find some room I guess but taking extra 400l of fuel plus extra Waceo coolers etc is going to take a lot of space but your right Im sure I could fit extra 20L drums. We hope to head down the South West which in Summer would be ok for a dip but after March forget it... too cold without the wetsuit!!

I'm thinking the general consensus so far is that it should be fine with a little backup. Thanks guys.

10L per person is an easy to do minimum , but will require a different mindset from dirt house living.

No big deal, just a mind set to turn off the tap , and let nothing run down the drain without use.

On a simple cruiser ,(no dishwasher or washing machine ), simple techniques will help.

One is to rinse dishes with a pitcher , filled from the tap .

Should dish washing become a problem , a salt water pump and faucet can be at the sink for food prep, dish washing , etc , with only a Fresh rinse .

A solar shower takes the wondering out of water use , and heats up quite well.

After a bit of practice , you will be shocked at how little water is really required.

The dirt living standard for water usage is 100 gallons per day per person. That standard has been around for over 2,500 years and goes back to the design of the aquaducts in Roman times. That being said, one can usually conserve and get down to 10-15 liters per day. Dish washing uses the most. Catch rain water and shower in the rain if possible.

dan

ulysses said:

The dirt living standard for water usage is 100 gallons per day per person. That standard has been around for over 2,500 years and goes back to the design of the aquaducts in Roman times. That being said, one can usually conserve and get down to 10-15 liters per day. Dish washing uses the most. Catch rain water and shower in the rain if possible.

dan

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Our house is on a well, and while we have a very productive well, far more than the majority of our neighbors, we try to conserve water by using low flow fixtures, toilets, dishwasher and clothes washer. Best I can tell we use no more then 50 gallons of water per day per person. I suspect it is closer to 25 gallons, maybe even less, most days and we could use far less if we really tried/needed too.

Most of our water usage is likely showers and clothes washing, especially the later, since we have two kids. Having said that, our washing machine uses a maximum of about 10 gallons a load but that washing machine never seems to stop.

Our showers use not quite a 1 GPM, I know because I measured. I don't like waste and it shocked me when we were in Hong Kong to see how much water was being used in the shower! Even in the hotel in mainland China, the shower head used too much water.

The boat we want has 250 gallons of water on board which I think we could make last a very long time without much effort and no lack of cleanliness.

Later,
Dan

Greetings,
Mr. Big. You're making this much more complicated than it needs be mate. Don't shower and use the extra capacity to carry...



If anyone smells bad, you're not drinking enough.

OK, our water usage is based on a concept that I do not want to compromise or conserve. I want to be able to live on my boat the same way as at home.

Based on that premise, we have found that two people on our boat use approx 50 gallons per day total. We bather every day and our showers are normal length.

If we use the clothes washer that takes an additional 20 gallons or so per load.

We have a 7 GPH watermaker which runs on DC so water is not an issue.

I can go on 5gal/day with a shower each day, not being particularly stingy, but not wasting either.

Get girls on the boat and forget it.

We live in a sailboat world where a third if not half do not have watermakers. 20 liters per day per person is on the conservative side i.e. you are really trying to save water. Can be done and is done all the time.

Suggest you think about capturing rain water and having a couple of 20 liter jugs to get water when you can on shore. Biggest issue will be the showers.

We find we use about 15-20 gals (55-75L) per day with 2 onboard and hold 75 gallons (285L). We take navy showers and don't let the water run needlessly. I installed these



on our galley and head faucets so we can set the water temperature, then toggle the water on and off as needed. It helps us save lots of water, especially when washing dishes.

Our head and anchor washdown are saltwater, so no effects there on our FW use.

can you swim or use salt water every other day instead of shower every day

We've been spoiled by our water maker. We take multiple showers a day, wash clothes, wash the dink, and whatever other FW needs we need. May have to add a second for redundancy.

We hold 350 gallons and have a little over 30% left after 10 days with fairly careful water use: navy showers every 2nd day, recovery of water when and where possible, don't let hot water run to get hot etc. The main head is freshwater flush to the waste tank, and "pees" are flushed straight over board with the 2nd head that is raw-water flush. I'm not sure how accurate the electric tank tender gauges are--they seem to drop down slowly until 50% then drop more rapidly after that. We only run the washer when we are planning a trip to a marina that has water.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. Big. You're making this much more complicated than it needs be mate. Don't shower and use the extra capacity to carry...

If anyone smells bad, you're not drinking enough.

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Well that solves everything. I shall now fill the 400l water tank with the scotch and take a couple of bottles of water

Bay Pelican said:

We live in a sailboat world where a third if not half do not have watermakers. 20 liters per day per person is on the conservative side i.e. you are really trying to save water. Can be done and is done all the time.

Suggest you think about capturing rain water and having a couple of 20 liter jugs to get water when you can on shore. Biggest issue will be the showers.

Click to expand...

Thanks but our rainfall is a bit too unpredictable for this. Could go a month or more without rain where I live.
The trip I want to do is just a one off 2 week trip, most trips I do are between 2-5 days and we never have a water issue over that time period.

bligh said:

can you swim or use salt water every other day instead of shower every day

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The water temp is very cold where I am going in the Autumn months so swimming is not really an option unless wetsuits are used.

N4712 said:

We've been spoiled by our water maker. We take multiple showers a day, wash clothes, wash the dink, and whatever other FW needs we need. May have to add a second for redundancy.

Click to expand...

I have not done a lot of research on water makers, the ones we use at work make around 100kl per day which is very handy.
At a guess the smaller ones for a cruiser/trawler would start around 4k USD would that be right?
How much room do they take up?

JDCAVE said:

We hold 350 gallons and have a little over 30% left after 10 days with fairly careful water use: navy showers every 2nd day, recovery of water when and where possible, don't let hot water run to get hot etc. The main head is freshwater flush to the waste tank, and "pees" are flushed straight over board with the 2nd head that is raw-water flush. I'm not sure how accurate the electric tank tender gauges are--they seem to drop down slowly until 50% then drop more rapidly after that. We only run the washer when we are planning a trip to a marina that has water.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

Click to expand...

Thanks Jim,

How many people on board for those figures?

The head is Salt water and we usually just pee off the stern if no one is around which is most of the time. We usually BBQ so not a lot of washing up to do which is good. I hope just one clothes wash each during the trip as will take extra clothing.

Biggusstickus said:

Thanks but our rainfall is a bit too unpredictable for this. Could go a month or more without rain where I live.
The trip I want to do is just a one off 2 week trip, most trips I do are between 2-5 days and we never have a water issue over that time period.

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If this is a one time event see if you can find somewhere to fill up with water mid trip. If not available consider doing what the sailors do, put jugs of water on deck. Go for another 100 liters.

"How much room does it take up?"

Is the third question.

First is how much power does it require , for how long.?

Second is what is the maint requirements, in use , in storage , and switching from sea water to brackish , to fresh?

JDCAVE: The Ulysses water gauge is similar-goes down faster when below 50%. The reason is that the sending unit is float based and the water tank is integral to the hull shape. Six inches of water at the top of the tank is a lot more than six inches of water at the bottom of the tank. I would suppose the KK is the same or at least conforms to the hull shape. Then again my fuel gauge in my truck does the same thing and its pretty much a rectangle.
dan

FF said:

On a simple cruiser ,(no dishwasher or washing machine ), simple techniques will help.

One is to rinse dishes with a pitcher , filled from the tap .

Click to expand...

Could rinse dishes in sea water, before washing...

-Chris

Biggusstickus said:

I have not done a lot of research on water makers, the ones we use at work make around 100kl per day which is very handy.
At a guess the smaller ones for a cruiser/trawler would start around 4k USD would that be right?
How much room do they take up?

Click to expand...

You can get the Katadyn 40E watermaker for $3600 at Defender.com



For alll the money we blow on our boats I have difficulty comprehending the sacrifices people make in their daily habits while aboard, for lack of this relativly small investment.

FlyWright said:

We find we use about 15-20 gals (55-75L) per day with 2 onboard and hold 75 gallons (285L). We take navy showers and don't let the water run needlessly. I installed these

on our galley and head faucets so we can set the water temperature, then toggle the water on and off as needed. It helps us save lots of water, especially when washing dishes.



Our head and anchor washdown are saltwater, so no effects there on our FW use.

Click to expand...

Can you provide a link on where you purchased this? I can see how this would really cut water usage washing dishes, thank you.

River Cruiser said:

Can you provide a link on where you purchased this? I can see how this would really cut water usage washing dishes, thank you.

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I got mine from my water company, but here's one like it at Amazon. A google search might find better alternatives for your boat.

Note that some only slow the water to a trickle, not a complete OFF. My head sink is like that and my galley sink goes almost completely OFF - just a slow drip every 5-10 seconds to remind us that the water's still turned ON. It's a great help while washing dishes. We get 180+ degree water out of the hot side and need to be very careful when setting the water temp. Once that's done, this little gem allows us to toggle ON/OFF with ease.

Thank you, I'am going to order one for the galley next time I get anything from Amazon.

One of the very best things we added to our boat was a Watercounter, telling us exactly what our usage was. This way we could measure what various lengths of shower took, as well as various cycles of the dishwasher and laundry, toilet flushes (freshwater vacuflush), and so on. We lived full time away from the dock (mooring or anchor) for a month or two or three at a time. We could get down to 10 gallons a day very easily with Navy showers, short cycle dishwashing and laundry every few days, and so on. 20 gallons very comfortable. Before we got an accurate water usage device, I thought a watermaker was in our immediate future, but then found the money much better spent on diesel fuel. (BTW, had 350 gallon tank).