We have no well on our property yet and have spent two years living on our homestead, in our travel trailer full time, without running water. I never thought I would ever say this, yet, I tend to forget that we have no running water here. Actually, everyone who visits us or passes by our place is shocked to learn that we have no running water. They always turn and stare at my "garden" in wonder then ask "If you don't have water, how do you have so many plants?" I have no idea why everyone thinks I planted all that greenery as most of it is nature. Inevitably they all want to know how we bathe.
The answer is simple, there are several places you can actually go to get a bath, not free of course, yet they exist. The first place we were directed to by a cashier at the gas station was a trailer park. They have public showers that you can pay for $5 a person. The owner was nice enough to let our kids bathe for free. While talking to another person at the local supermarket we were told about the Y.M.C.A and yes the song did automatically roll through our heads and stayed for the rest of the day to our dismay.
We drove a few towns over and found the Y, went in and filled out some paperwork. If you are suffering financial hardship they offer financial aid. I think you have to volunteer when you do that though. We have a family rate that covers all of us for the entire facility. From showers, to the pool, to the exercise equipment and even the little day care center.
When we first parked our travel trailer on our new acreage, we thought to buy a portable RV fresh water tank and fill the water storage tank. We took the heavy duty vinyl water tank to the gas station, filled it with about 50 gallons of water, I'd have to check the capacity to see if that's correct, and started to fill the tank. That is when we noticed the pipes in the bathroom were leaking onto the floor. We started looking for alternatives right away.
For home water use, we bought a 5 gallon potable water container from the hunting section of Wal-mart. We used that for one year and then switched to bottled water. There are not many gas stations with outdoor water faucets in the winter and there's only so much water begging you can do before they cut you off. We save all the water bottles and take them back to the supermarket for the $0.05 deposit. That adds up. We have been able to pay for our groceries on occasion using just the deposit money.
Our laundry is done at the laundromat a few towns over. I'm looking into an old fashioned hand crank washing machine and clothes line for next year. The well drillers were here a couple weeks ago and we got a few estimates mailed to us. It will cost us almost $6,000 to drill the well, put in the electric pump and storage tank. We will have to hire a plumber to hook the water up to our travel trailer. Just having running water, even if only a stand pipe, on the property will be a relief. The savings from not driving to take a bath and buy bottled water will be tremendous.
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