2025 Water Plan

This is the 2025 water plan. It is still preliminary.

Camp Layout

This year's layout places the Food Fort much closer to the Gayflower, and with its inlets and outlets facing the fire lane. That means pumping between those two locations is closer and Sierra Site Services ("SSS") can easily service everything if needed.

Food Fort

Read more details on the Food Fort plumbing

Fresh Water

For the Food Fort we expect to use 1000 gallons, same as last year. To make this easy, we'll rent a 500 gallon tank from SSS and put it right next to the Food Fort inlets on the passenger side, front. 

There are two inlets there (both 3/4" garden hose), one for ice machine, and the other for sinks. If possible we'll set it up so the SSS tank directly pressurizes the kitchen.

We will schedule a single refill of this tank midweek.

• If the tank is used up before the refill arrives:
  • We'll warn the food team that they are using too much water
  • We'll provide some temporary water using a hose from the Gayflower
• If the tank still has water in it on the day when the refill is scheduled:
  • We'll move it into the Food Fort tanks before refilling, so as to make sure we get all 500 gallons that we paid for

Grey Water

We also expect to generate 1000 gallons of grey water from the Food Fort. We'll rent a 250 gallon tank from SSS and put it right next to the Food Fort. We'll schedule three pumps of this tank (750 gallons) during the week, and we can also leave it full.

During the week, grey water from the food fort will accumulate in its internal tank which holds 104 gallons. On a regular basis, we will use a portable pump to empty that into the SSS tank. 

The ice maker dumps a bunch of semi-clean water out the bottom, too. This does not go into any kind of tank. We have to put a large concrete mixing tub under there to catch this water and regularly pump it out to the SSS tank.

The goal is to get the SSS tank as full as possible by the time they come to pump it out, so as to take advantage of all 250 gallons pumping that we paid for.

If we ever get to the point where the SSS tank is full and the internal tank is full, we will have to pump water over to the Gayflower. This is not very easy. I think you could lower a water bug into the SSS tank (hopefully it fits through the big circle on top) and run a hose from there up to the nearest toilet inside the gayflower (hopefully it can pump that far).

Gayflower 

The Gayflower will come with over 2000 gallons of fresh water which should be enough for showers, toilets, drinking water (canteens), and as emergency backup for food. 

It can accommodate 1250 gallons of grey water and 1250 gallons of black water. Last year the grey water tanks were much fuller than the black water tanks. So if we ever have to pump excess grey water from the RV or food fort into the Gayflower, we should pump it into the black water tanks.

We will set up a hose from the Gayflower to provide fresh water for drinking, which can go through a water filter.

2026 And Beyond

1. Let's get some inline water meters to better judge how much water we're using
   
2. Ultimately I'd like to get the SSS usage down to zero and rely solely on the Gayflower. It's way cheaper that way.