Extending time in your RV without hookups...

It was a wet, rainy, windy, miserable day yesterday. We had been parked overlooking the Arctic Ocean, and when the cold front blew in overnight... it blew in hard! We were both woken up by the wind rocking Sherman, and howling through the electrical cables we were parked near.

Winds were averaging 50 km/h (30 miles per hour) and gusting to 70 km/h (42 mph).

And, it was only 7C (45F) inside the motorhome. I put on our Mr. Heater Buddy, but it couldn't keep up to the cold wind finding it's way in. I had to put the furnace on at the same time to kick start the heat a little bit and once things warmed up the Mr. Heater Buddy was just barely able to keep us there if it was on high.

View out Sherman's front window!

But at least we are not in a tent!

Yikes!

After breakfast, we moved. We found a spot at the back of the ice rink to get out of the wind. Not as nice of a view, but at least we were now warm and sheltered from the wind. We stayed there in the motorhome for the rest of the day and only went out to check out the Pingo Market that takes place Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. But because of the weather, there was only one vendor at the market. He said it would be better on Saturday, and from the looks of the weather forecast we are going to be here that long!

A reader asked the following questions yesterday...

Could you do a post on how you handle dumping/filling tanks, how often you need to do it, are there any special tricks you use for extending the time needed to do it (one blogger I read suggested using a trash can for used toilet paper, like it's often done in Mexico -- what do you think), etc. etc. Do you keep showers to a minimum? Wash dishes in a different way that saves water? 

Yep, we do all of that and more! In fact, many of those things we have incorporated into our daily RV lifestyle so that we don't even think about them when we are traveling in the motorhome. We are so rarely hooked up to services, that it's just normal for us.

However, when we know that we're going to be a long time between dump stations or water fill up, we are extra cautious.

Hmm. Where to start.

Well, yes... we do put used toilet paper into a small covered trash can beside the toilet. There is a plastic bag inside the trash can, and that gets tossed in a dumpster once every couple of days. And no, we have never noticed an odor. I guess we just got in the habit of doing this when we started going to Mexico years ago. There are several benefits of doing this. The odds of you having a blockage in your sewer drain is pretty much eliminated. And you can use whatever brand of toilet paper you wish instead of specifically looking for one that disintegrates quickly.

We also use very little water when using the toilet. I don't mean to get too descriptive here, but RV'ers will understand what I mean when I say that your RV toilet bowl is not very efficient at flushing! It's difficult to clean without using an awfully lot of water when you're doing business #2. This is probably where the most fresh water is wasted, and ends up filling up your holding tank.

So... put a little bit of water in the bowl before you sit... maybe an inch or so... just enough to wet the sides of the bowl. Then you do your business and flush quickly so as not to have fresh water going down the drain. Then, you need a one liter (or smaller) size spray bottle filled with water a little bit of liquid laundry softener. You use this spray bottle mixture to clean the inside of the toilet bowl. Put it on a streaming spray to clean the residue. You will use very little water to do so, when compared to the "normal" way.

Also, we try to use public toilets if they exist. And if they don't, I (Kevin) will try to pee outside if we're at a place where I can get away with it.

In eleven years of RV'ing, our black tank has only come close to full once or twice. And we typically have no problem finding somewhere to empty it when it is only half full.

For the grey tank, with washing dishes, we use very little water in a separate bowl in the sink. Maybe an inch and a half deep depending on the amount of dishes. It doesn't take very much water to clean dishes. We don't often do this, but we have read of people using a paper towel as soon as they are done eating to wipe the heavy residue off their plates and utensils, making them easier to clean with very little water.

When we know that we're going to be without fresh water or somewhere to dump our tanks, we simply go without showering. A sponge bath works quite well, using hardly any water. And when we do shower, it only takes about ten seconds of water to get wet before you turn the water off. You shampoo your hair and then soap your body at the same time without rinsing off. Then maybe 20 seconds more of water to rinse yourself off. I probably don't use a gallon, and Ruth slightly more because of her hair.

Oh, and we hardly ever turn on our hot water heater. In fact, the only time we turn on the hot water heater is when we are going to have a shower, and even then it's only to get the water warm enough that we can use the hot water valve only without adding cold to it. Otherwise, we heat water on the stove when we need to. And when we think the hot water is ready for having a shower, we have a container to use under the faucet to collect the cold water that is in the line before the hot water starts flowing.

Sherman's fresh water tank holds 32 gallons, and the black and grey tanks are 42 gallons each. So we are rarely worried about filling our waste holding tanks. It is more likely that our first problem will be running out of fresh water! We also carry a 5 gallon jug of drinking water. We do not drink the water in our holding tank except for boiling for coffee and tea.

We can typically go 10 days before we need water, and longer before we need to dump however if we really stretched it we could probably go longer.

And of course solar panels, batteries, a 1,000 watt inverter, and LED lights look after our electrical needs. From full, our propane tank will last 6 weeks or so depending on what climate we're in.

So, coming up here to Tuktoyaktuk where there are no RV services, we made sure we left Inuvik with a full fresh water tank and empty waste holding tanks. We only expected to be here 3-4 days, and we're already into day 5 and there might be a day 6 or 7 depending on what the weather does. Always better to be prepared. Although, our propane is getting low but we should still be okay until we get back to Inuvik.

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