How does it work when you have a dry cabin? (Fox: 2014, water heater)

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by redjacket

if you live in a dry cabin one thing that really works to your advantage is a good case of constipation.

Quite funny, Redjacket.

[tgssantini]

When in cabin that has sink, tub & toilet fixtures but no city water in coming. Good to have several water containers. Best is 7 gal. that is good amount but still not so heavy to lift from truck to cabin. Camp showers (found in any camping store)in either 5gal or 10gal are easy to use if you like bathing often. We used small tub (kind of an over sized bucket) heated 1or 2 gals on top of wood stove then filled rest of tub from containers for a warm shower. In bathtub we shampooed and lathered, body then with large cup rinsed off. Amazing how little water you actually need. Same for dishes ( but in kitchen sink) not bath bucket! :-) Hubby and I used about 10 of the 7gal containers per 1-1/2 weeks(bathed daily for co- workers sake). Regular bucket poured from good height into toilet flushed it well, but only flushed solid waste and pee only one a day.

[MouseBandit]

HI there! Another "outsider" (is that the right term?) who wants to start planning a move to Alaska. I've got some questions too about the greywater systems. Mainly, how do you dispose of the greywater? I've done homesteading and off-grid living down here (Oregon), but we can just dig a sink-hole, fill it with gravel, and filter the water through and let it absorb into the subsoil, like a leach line. I can imagine all sorts of potential issues with that method up here - water not absorbing into permafrost, or thawing permafrost and creating boggy areas, and freezing of open-ended outdoor pipes. I'm sure lots more I don't even know enough to imagine, LOL! I know I can do the hauling water and living with very little water, just not sure about how to recycle the water.

Also, what about the suggestion of keeping 55-gallon drums of water in the cabin? I know we've seen that done frequently, in all sorts of applications. Anyone do anything like that up there? Like cachement systems? (I know they do those a lot in SE AK, but I'm thinking more of the interior).

Also, can you do hot composting up there? We do a lot of sawdust toilets here and hot-compost the "products". But, we don't see much in the way of sustained below-freezing temps here, except for a few weeks each winter.

Thanks! I'm really grateful to have found these forums!

[6.7traveler]

^ Being the environmentalist that I am I just pour the grey water wherever on the ground or down the outhouse, depends on how full the bucket is and how far I'm willing to walk at the time (unless you or whoever is reading this works for the EPA or other related agency, in which case I definitely have an approved permitted septic system and the rest of the post is purely for informative purposes).

The worst is when you forget that you live in a dry cabin and get excited while washing dishes and your 5 gallon bucket "drain" fills to the brim or even over flows (that's only happened once or twice). I am working on a septic system now so I'll eventually use that. I don't really have any close neighbors. You'd be fine pouring grey water onto a gravel leach line, it will eventually melt after the winter...

Anyways, the 55 gallon barrel in the cabin could theoritically work, until you left your cabin unattended for more than a day and it would freeze solid. I prefer the 5 gallon blue Coleman jugs that have a little turning spigot attached. Much easier to fill and transport. If you want a big tank, I'd bury it or put it in a crawl space and pump it out.

I have had a few composting toilets, one in Arizona and one in Homer. The one in Arizona performed much better. I believe it was to humid and moist to work properly in homer. Honestly, I just prefer an outhouse. A lot less "labor intensive". I like to forget about my excrement after a while. Making sure it has proper moisture levels and rotating it and adding stuff to it and then emptying it, just isn't for me. With the outhouse I just have to make sure I knock down the frozen "poopsicle" that builds up in the middle once in a while.

For some unknown reason I feel compelled to pour my ash after I clean out my woodstove down the outhouse. If the ash still has a few embers glowing in it, it makes for an interesting smell.

I have lived in a dry cabin since last December and it's really not that bad. Sure I'd love to have running water but my well is going to cost approx $7k so that will most likely come next year.

Good luck to you.

[It is 57 below zero]

Are there any houses in the Fairbanks area that have actual plumbing?

[Music_Man]

Originally Posted by It is 57 below zero

Are there any houses in the Fairbanks area that have actual plumbing?

No! It is to hard to put plumbing in ice.

[Sminthian]

I've heard that people in Alaska that don't have running water just use rainwater collection systems and then have thousands of gallons of water sitting there. People don't do that? It seems easier than going back and forth to a spring with 5 gallon jugs...

[Frostnip]

Originally Posted by It is 57 below zero

Are there any houses in the Fairbanks area that have actual plumbing?

No. Everyone uses honey buckets. Honey buckets are buckets you pee in, but there's honey added to make it smell less gross.

Originally Posted by Sminthian

I've heard that people in Alaska that don't have running water just use rainwater collection systems and then have thousands of gallons of water sitting there. People don't do that? It seems easier than going back and forth to a spring with 5 gallon jugs...

First of all, it doesn't rain that much in most of the interior. Secondly, keeping water safely potable during long-term storage can be a challenge. Rain catchment systems can be useful but they aren't the be-all-end-all.

[It is 57 below zero]

Originally Posted by Frostnip

No. Everyone uses honey buckets. Honey buckets are buckets you pee in, but there's honey added to make it smell less gross.



First of all, it doesn't rain that much in most of the interior. Secondly, keeping water safely potable during long-term storage can be a challenge. Rain catchment systems can be useful but they aren't the be-all-end-all.

The interior gets a little rain at least, during the summer months. At least it's not as dry as California or Nevada, where there's almost NO rain from May through October. Right now, California sucks because they are in a drought because of this.

In terms of precipitation, there's plenty of snow in the interior from late October through early April, to make up for the drier summers.

------------------------------------------

I meant to ask, does kitchen sinks have actual running water? Can you take a real bath? Can you flush a toilet with real water after every session? Or is Alaska also in a drought? In other words, can people in Alaska live a decent, actual life just as well as people in the other states?

I'm pretty sure there's a river near Fairbanks, is that a reliable water source?

[Frostnip]

Originally Posted by It is 57 below zero

The interior gets a little rain at least, during the summer months. At least it's not as dry as California or Nevada, where there's almost NO rain from May through October. Right now, California sucks because they are in a drought because of this.

In terms of precipitation, there's plenty of snow in the interior from late October through early April, to make up for the drier summers.

No one cares about California.

I've been giving your spacey questions dumb answers, but I was serious in my response to Sminthian, because Sminthian isn't just throwing goofiness out to see what will stick or asking LMGIFY questions. Fairbanks, for example, only gets about 10-12 inches of precipitation all year. The snow looks like more precipitation than it really is, because it is fluffy and crystalline, but it is a comparatively dry snow that does not contain all that much water proportionate to the inches of snowfall.

I meant to ask, does kitchen sinks have actual running water? Can you take a real bath? Can you flush a toilet with real water after every session? Or is Alaska also in a drought? In other words, can people in Alaska live a decent, actual life just as well as people in the other states?

I'm pretty sure there's a river near Fairbanks, is that a reliable water source?

No. We cannot live lives here. We are all zombies, actually. We became zombies by falling in the Tanana and drowning in the glacial silt while trying to get water to fill our rustic copper wash basins.