Living In The Desert Without Water...Really?

Today, I will show you exactly how we use water on our homestead and we will finally answer the question of whether or not we are drilling a well! I will also show you how I use our Drummond 1/2 HP Transfer Pump (http://bit.ly/3g91aKE) from Harbor Freight to get the water from the cisterns into the trainer and for use with my off-grid laundry set up.

Hi and welcome! We are Douglas and Keri and we recently quit our jobs, sold everything, and in September of 2022 we took a leap of faith and moved onto our off grid homestead property in the high desert of Cochise County, Arizona. Follow along with us as we build our off grid homestead property with our two rebels, Willow & Zoey and our 16 y/o kitty, Boo.

I want to show you 3 components to our off-grid water set up, but first, to well or not to well?

For now, we have decided to hold off on drilling a well. Let me tell you why!

1. Many wells in the area are drying up.
2. It is a risky expense that we just cannot afford right now. We would be looking at around $25,000 minimum to drill and there would be NO guarantee that we would hit water. That just feels like too big of a risk right now.
3. Our original plan was to live off of rainwater and we want to at least try this route before pursuing a well.

I know what you are thinking! Living off of rainwater in the desert? Are you kidding me? No way! You guys are crazy! Well, we might be a little crazy :) But, here are the facts about rainwater:

1. Overall, rainwater is much better for you than well water…it’s cleaner, less pollutants, and needs less filtering.
2. We get an average of 14 inches of rain where we live, although for 2022 some of our neighbors have recorded upwards of 38 inches. So, here is the math on rainwater collection:

With a 1000 square foot collection surface (typically a roof), if it rains 1 inch, you will collect 600 gallons of water.

Now, we plan on having a minimum of 3000 square feet of collection surfaces (i.e. the house roof, guest house roof, shop roof, animal shelter roof, etc.). So for our purposes:

So with an average rainfall of 14 inches, we will collect 25,200 gallons of water. Now, if it rains 38 inches, like it did this year so far, then we would collect 68,400 gallons of water. We know that will not happen often, so we do understand we will need to supplement some years with water delivery. We found a great water delivery service out of Benson, AZ called Rockin U Water Delivery and we highly recommend them! They charge approximately .08 cents/gallon.

I want to explain the 3 components of our current water system. We have two 1550 gallon cisterns that we had filled by the water service. We use that cistern water to:

Do laundry which is separate from the trailer water usage.
Water our outdoor plants which is also separate from the trailer water usage.
Fill our 31 gallon fresh water tank in our trailer to use for: dishes, sinks, showering, drinking, and cooking. We fill this tank up approximately every 5-6 days. So, for the trailer we use an average of 6 gallons a water a day which is 3 gallons per person. We are VERY frugal with our water use and this number may be significantly lower than some others usage because we swapped out our RV flush toilet for a composting toilet. This saves us a TON of water consumption in the trailer! In this video, you can watch how we did the swap…it was actually pretty simple and you can watch that here: https://youtu.be/cP1OkFVxgP0

We got our 1550 gallon cisterns from Southwest Irrigation out of Willcox…they are fantastic and they deliver and also give a very good discount when you buy more than 1 cistern plus they have great customer service! https://southwest-irrigation.com/

Hope you enjoyed the video and we always appreciate a like and subscribe if you’re finding value in what we are sharing :)

DISCLAIMER: Douglas and Keri are not professional contractors and the information contained in this video is for entertainment purposes. Please make sure to do your own research!

Once again, thanks for following along with us and we hope to inspire you to live your best life, whatever that might mean for you!

Merchandise: https://two-rebels-off-grid.creator-spring.com/listing/two-rebels-off-grid

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/tworebelsoffgrid
Facebook: www.facebook.com/tworebelsoffgrid
Patreon: www.patreon.com/tworebelsoffgrid
YouTube: @tworebelsoffgrid

Music by: Licensed by Tunepocket
Video Editing by: iMovie for Windows
All the artwork for this channel are original creations by Douglas because he is an incredible artist!