The governor of California has created a permanent law rationing indoor water use for all residents to 55 gallons a day.

By 2030 that amount will drop to 50 gallons a day for indoor use. That amount is per person in the household per day.

Mothers are wondering how they will do laundry. Could you live with only using 55 gallons of water a day, including dishwashing, laundry, showers, bathing pets, and so on?

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Heartlander · 80-89, M

My grandparents in their early lives lived off the grid and ran a 20,000 acre farm. City water, gas, electricity and sewer eventually came to them, but they still retained huge outdoor cisterns for most of their water needs. Water from the roof drained into the cisterns and was used for everything but drinking and cooking water, and the upstairs bathroom. To render an estimate, the cisterns probably held 25,000 to 50,000 gallons.

Long droughts would run them low and they knew when to start being extra conservative. They kept an out-house functional for when things got seriously desperate.

But they already knew how to be self sufficient and city water was a luxury. For us city slickers already living on 100 to 200+ gallons a day, it's gonna be a bit of a transition.

Turn it into a challenge and an adventure :)

4meAndyou · F

@Heartlander I spent summers on my grandfather's farm in Nebraska. ALL water for crops was delivered to the valley via the Tri-State, a series of ditches...and ALL drinking water had to be pumped from underground. My mother told stories of how they did the laundry when they still had a washing machine that used a hand crank. They would fill the machine with the hottest water possible and shave slivers of soap into it, and all the laundry was sorted by cleanest first, dirtiest last, and ALL of it was washed in the same tub of water.

People washed in the same way...ALL using the same tub of hot water, cleanest...girls and women....first, dirtiest, farm boys, last.

Heartlander · 80-89, M

@4meAndyou Haaa ... yes. I think it's where that "[i][b]don't throw the baby away with the bath water[/b][/i]" originated.

I remember the old wringer washing machines. Clothes washing and drying were outdoor activities and as I recall, the soap of choice for practically everything was octagon

It will be interesting to see how California handles this. The heartlands has it's own history with the dust-bowl years and all my in-the-know friends keep warning about the depleting aquifers with doomsday intensity.

whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M

Domestic rain water collection tanks are part of new housing developments where I am, for all out door uses. The tanks are not huge. But it makes a lot of difference.@Heartlander

Heartlander · 80-89, M

@whowasthatmaskedman Great. We have one. Or had one. We're presently reworking for a larger and more sophisticated one. The 55 gallon tank we had was fed by just a small part of the roof and it filled up within minutes.

Quit a few cities also have started adding them to help water the midtown greenery. Millions of gallons run off from elevated parking lots that can easily be tanked and drip-fed to mid-city greenery.