How do you save water aboard

[roverhi]

Turn off the pressure water system and use foot pumps. Will cut your water usage drastically.

Have you thought about not letting the water run while you brush your teeth. Can't see how you'd use much water brushing your teeth. All you need water for is to rinse the toothbrush when your done.

[Stu Jackson]

Scanvik water wand

[snoozy814]

Spray bottles w/fresh water for rinsing dishes. Seawater faucet (Joy lathers in seawater).
Using a SMALL bucket w/some fresh water to bathe in and not washing hair every day (better for your hair anyway). Spray bottle to rinse yourself off/cool down in hot temps. Bottled water for drinking/cooking

[Marathon1150]

We use footpumps in the galley and head as well as a saltwater footpump for rinsing dishes followed by a spray bottle final rinse. We keep the pressure water pump off, most of the time.

[rsn48]

1. Composting toilet, no water involved.

2. Dished saved up during the day are washed in the evening with the dinner dishes, only one wash per day. The dirty dishes are kept in the head.

3. Also use fresh water spray bottle.

4. Take less showers and clean only portions of my body with wet clot, some gentle soap and towel. I can wash my hair with one large glass of water. Fill glass 1/4 full, put glass upside down on head keeping it moderately tight to the skin to wet my hair down, then soap up, then with about three quarters of a cup of water, again upside down on my head, move all around to rinse. The towel down.

[chrisr]

our watermaker churns out 80L per hr so we don't go to a lot of trouble to conserve water.

however ;

- 1 wash up of dishes per day. the owner will often rinse in saltwater first

- sensible length showers, usually - but not always - every second day

cheers,

[frozenhawaiian]

few things that we've done that cut down on our water use quite a bit:

1. a saltwater foot pump in the galley. we use saltwater for most the dishwashing and then use freshwater just to rinse.

2. saltwater washdown pump with a spigot on deck. in warm climates we use this for our showers on deck and then just use freshwater to rinse off the salt.

3. we have 2 heads on board. one thats always on the tank is freshwater flushing that we use inshore but the other we plumbed with saltwater and we use that one exclusively when we're offshore and can pump straight overboard. saves a lot of fresh water.

we carry 500 gallons of fresh water and have a 18gph watermaker but we're till careful about our water consumption, just a good habit to get into.

[Mike OReilly]

We don't really try to conserve water. We're just very conscious of what we're using, and treat it as a limited resource.

We have both pressure and manual pumps. And like RSN, we have a composting head, so no water used there. We have salt water tap in the galley which we use for the initial wash cycle of dishes. We then spritz with fresh.

Our shower is cockpit variety, and we try and use rain water whenever possible. For laundry we do the initial wash in salt, then rinse in fresh.

[Tomodore]

We have no pressure fresh water and that is our only water restriction. Tried washing dishes in salt and rinse with spray bottle fresh and salt corroded our silver and was not worth the trouble. For me having strict water rationing results in less joy for the admiral and then less joy for me. When we cruised PNW fresh water was plentiful and easy. Now in desert Baja not as easy but easier getting more from 4 gallon water maker or hauling purchased water than policing every quart. Just my take, one size doesn't fit all.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Scanvik water wand

Hey Stu, Do you care to elaborate on that?

[Joh.Ghurt]

Originally Posted by dandkg

if you're in clean water,,,1.we do alot of cooking with sea-water(rice,noodles,ect)you're boiling the water and using less salt.

In the Mediterranean you this only once. The noodles will be totally over-salted. Between 1/3 and 1/2 seawater is maximum here.

[CassidyNZ]

To save water I have begun to only run my watermaker fresh-water flush for 4 minutes instead of 8.

The two facts that have been enduringly evident in our decades of offshore sailing is that we have never practised any water saving measures and we have never come even close to running out of water. It is, to me, one of the most over-stated “perils” of offshore sailing.

And before the vitriol flows, I have only had a watermaker for the last year is so.

[GreenRu]

That's fascinating! I'm going to measure how much water we use brushing!

[bobnlesley]

When it's warm we always shower in the cockpit but nowadays using 1.5 litre water bottles rather than solar shower bags; one bottle provides a good shower and the system is particularly good on ocean passages as you can shower sitting on the floor of a rolling cockpit without the water going everywhere but on you: Get a 1.5 litre drinking water bottle, remove the cap and pierce it about 10-12 times - our chart table dividers were perfect for the task of making small holes, fill the bottle with water, screw on the now pierced cap and invert the bottle. If your holes are correctly sized, it should allow no more than the odd drip to escape, but when you squeeze the body of the bottle, you get a good shower spray which stops when you stop squeezing. What amazed me was how long the bottles last, I'd thought they'd crack/split after a few uses, but they last for months.

[Mike OReilly]

A few years ago I installed a flow meter on the water line. So I know, to the gallon (or litre), how much water we use. It turns out to be amazingly consistent at just shy of 1 gallon/person/day. So for the two of us we use ~2 gallons/day.

I know this is much less than what most people report. But along with the previous factors, the other big thing we have is where we cruise. We're in more northerly climes (Newfoundland), so we aren't sweating buckets all day. We also don't swim, so don't need to shower off constantly.

Our boat carries about 200 gallons of water, so at our rate of consumption we can be out for nearly three months. Even still, I would like to get a small DC watermaker. Maybe someday when the boat budget allows...