Four People, Four Nights, No Spigot: The Water Math for Virginia Key

The survival guide gives one number: bring one gallon of water per person per day.

That sounds manageable until you multiply it against a rental spec sheet.

The arithmetic

Love Burn runs Thursday February 11 through Sunday the 14th, and everyone is off site Monday the 15th by 5:00 PM. Call it four nights and five days on the key.

Four people at one gallon per person per day, for five days, is 20 gallons. That is drinking water only. It does not include dishes, rinsing, or a single shower.

A typical Class C rental in the 24 to 30 foot range carries a fresh water tank somewhere between 30 and 45 gallons. A travel trailer in the same size class often carries less.

So on paper you are fine. In practice you are not, and here is why.

What the gallon-per-day rule leaves out

The rule covers drinking. Everything else comes out of the same tank.

A short RV shower runs two to five gallons depending on how disciplined you are. Washing dishes for four people for five days is easily ten gallons. Flushing the toilet uses roughly a pint to a half gallon per flush, and four people over five days is a lot of flushes.

Add it up and a 40 gallon fresh tank is not generous. It is adequate if nobody showers much.

The tank nobody thinks about

Fresh water is the tank people check. Grey and black are the tanks that end the trip.

Every gallon you bring in has to go somewhere. Your grey tank takes the shower and sink water. Your black tank takes the toilet. Neither can be emptied on Virginia Key, because there is no dump on site. Pumpouts are ordered separately after placement, around December, and the official page is the place to arrange that.

If your grey tank is smaller than your fresh tank, and on many rentals it is, then your real limit is not how much water you brought. It is how much dirty water you can hold.

The practical version

• Arrive with the fresh tank full and both waste tanks empty. Do this on the mainland, before Rickenbacker Causeway, because there is nothing to do it with once you cross.
• Bring separate drinking water in jugs. It keeps your tank water for washing and flushing, and it means a tank problem is not also a drinking problem.
• Agree on shower rules before you go, not on day three.
• Check the grey tank capacity on the listing alongside the fresh one. Message the host if it is missing.

Related

Compare power stations and solar for the other resource you cannot resupply, read the self contained packing logistics, or see how pumpouts actually get ordered.

Source: the Love Burn survival guide.