We've been asked a few times now if we have any good tips for conserving resources while dry camping or boondocking. Since we seem to be pretty good at it (according to ourselves anyway, and the length of time we've managed to dry camp), we thought we'd do a post about it. Maybe you already know all of these things, or maybe you're just starting out and this will be super helpful. Either way, we thought it would be kinda fun for us to think through all the little things we do to increase our efficiency in the Airstream.
Basically, there are four categories we think about: water, electricity, holding tank management, and propane, in that order. If we're dry camping or boondocking, fresh water is the first thing to go. If we're in a campground with partial hookups (electricity and water only), then tank management and propane are the only things we have to worry about.
WATER
The two biggest drains on fresh water are washing dishes and taking showers.
Washing Dishes:
We wash our dishes using a bowl with a squirt of soap and a little bit of hot water to start. Wash a bunch of silverware and wait to rinse it until you have a handful. When you rinse, rinse so the water goes mostly into the bowl, and this will increase the amount of soapy water you have to wash with.
**Note: While you run to the water and wait for it to get hot, run that water into something else so you can use it. We have a Sodastream carbonator in the Airstream and so we fill an empty bottle with the "not yet warm" water to use for fizzing/drinking later, or in the reservoir for the espresso maker.
We never leave the water running while doing dishes. Wash a few things, rinse a few things. It takes a little bit to get used to, but you'll get the hang of it.
**Holding Tank Management Note: If we're trying to be extra careful about gray water capacity so that we can shower, we sometimes pour the used dishwater into the toilet/black water tank. Since that tank is much slower to fill up (and it actually helps to have extra water in there) it seems like a good move. Some campgrounds have little drain areas specifically for dumping dishwater…also a good option – stretch your legs, walk your dishwater out to the dishwater dump.
Showers:
We switched out the stock shower head that came with our Airstream with an Oxygenics shower head. It uses quite a bit less water than the original one. Also, don't leave the water running when you shower. Both the stock Airstream shower head and the Oxygenics shower head allow you to cut off the water flow on the shower head. (Note: both of these shower heads trickle in the "off" position…it's supposed to do that and yours is not broken.) Get wet. Soap/shampoo, then rinse. Condition/shave, then rinse again. It's not luxurious, but running out of fresh water or filling up the gray water tank isn't luxurious either. We can both take pretty good showers and increase the gray water tank by only 1/8 or less. To us, it's worth being this careful because it's totally worth it to be able to take a shower while you're camped on the side of a lake somewhere where there ARE no showers. If the campground has showers and they're clean, use them. It'll save a tremendous amount of water and holding tank space.
Brushing Your Teeth:
Don't leave the water running while you brush your teeth. Duh.
Also, we have a couple of these 6 gallon BPA-free water jugs and if we plan to be out a while, we carry those full of fresh water. They're still light enough to be able to lift up to add water to your fresh water tank if you need to.
ELECTRICITY
We replaced all of the stock halogen bulbs that came in our Airstream with LED bulbs. Each halogen bulb was 10w and each LED is 1.2w. Most of the newer Airstreams now come with LEDs…which is nice because that was not a cheap switch for us (31 bulbs, or something like that!) That means you can save 88% of the electricity it takes to run your lights by using LEDs instead of halogens.
Since we spend so much time in our Airstream, we also sometimes watch TV and movies (although many people think it's very uncool to watch TV while "camping", we think of this as our home, and at home, sometimes we watch TV. Whatever.) We installed two very low power 12 volt 22" tv/dvd combo units by Skyworth that we got from www.roadtrucker.com. They use MUCH less electricity than the standard AC-powered flat screens.
Anywhere possible, we use low power 12 volt appliances. (We also turn everything off when we leave for a few hours.) One of the biggest electricity users is actually the heater. Even though the heat comes from propane, the fan uses quite a bit of electricity. Keeping your thermostat low (or off when you're not there) saves electricity as well as propane.
The kinds of appliances to be really careful about are things that make heat: toasters, microwaves, coffee makers, hair dryers, curling/flat irons…all of these things use tons of electricity. If you're boondocking, use them sparingly or not at all. (Particularly for cooking you'll want to use the propane stove and/or your outside grill instead of any electric cooking appliances.)
Now, we do have a crazy awesome solar system with 400 watts of solar panels on the roof, a 2000 watt inverter and 6 bigass AGM batteries in our trailer, and this has a huge effect on how we think about electricity while we're dry camping or boondocking: we don't think about it much at all. We can run both of our laptops, espresso maker, microwave, 1000w hairdryer, tv/dvd, the Traeger grill, etc. as much as we want, and as long as we have good sun, our batteries never get below about 90% and are back to full by mid-afternoon. (The only thing we can't use when we are dry camping or boondocking is the air conditioning. Obviously, not everyone has this crazy set up, so your mileage will of course vary.
We don't have a generator and with the solar system we have, we don't need one. If you're boondocking much, however, you'll need either (1) a good generator, or (2) a pretty substantial (and more expensive) solar system. (The small solar systems that come as factory options on some Airstreams are really only good for keeping your batteries topped up when you're not using the trailer. They won't supply a significant amount of a typical day's electricity use.)
HOLDING TANK MANAGEMENT
I covered most of this subject in the above categories: (1) don't leave water running when you shower, do dishes, or brush your teeth; (2) try to dump dishwater sometimes in a dishwater dump reservoir or sometimes in the toilet.
Our fresh water tank is 39 gallons. Our gray water tank is 37 gallons, and our black water tank is 39 gallons. So if we manage the tank levels closely along the way, we can add fresh water as needed and stay out for a couple of weeks without having to dump our tanks.
PROPANE
Heater: Keep the heat off if you don't need it during the day, and set it as low as you are comfortable at night when sleeping (use plenty of blankets). If you have the thermostat set high (or even on what you're used to at home) and leave it on all the time, that uses up propane in a hurry.
**Note: When we are hooked up to electricity, we have a small space heater that we use for heat instead of our Airstream heater, saving our propane for when we need it.
Water Heater: The hot water heater really only takes about 10 minutes to heat the water, so we leave ours off most of the time and only turn it on before we're going to use it to do dishes or take a shower, then turn it off again when we're done. Otherwise you are using propane to keep 6 gallons of water hot all night while you sleep and all day while you're out exploring.
Kitchen appliances: The stove, oven, and fridge use very little propane, so we don't worry about those at all. We can probably dry camp a couple of weeks without using up one propane tank (unless we are somewhere really cold and need to run the heat all day.) If your fridge and/or your hot water heater have an electric mode, learn how they work and use them when you're plugged into electricity. This will save more propane for when you're dry camping. However, if you're running on an inverter off your batteries, be sure that your fridge and hot water heater are NOT on electric mode — they'll drain your batteries in a hurry.
Have you got any conservation tips to share with us? Post 'em in the comments section!
(Posted by Laura & Kevin)
