Are you wondering how to go to the bathroom in a van? Should you try a composting toilet, a bucket with a bag, or just digging a hole?
In this episode of The Wayward Home podcast, we're exploring all the ways you can go to the bathroom in a van with Engineers Who Van Life.
How to find Engineers Who Van Life:
Links mentioned in this podcast:
Connect with Kristin Hanes and The Wayward Home!
Are you wondering how to go to the bathroom in a van? Should you try a composting toilet, a bucket with a bag, or just digging a hole?
In this episode of The Wayward Home podcast, we're exploring all the ways you can go to the bathroom in a van with Engineers Who Van Life.
How to find Engineers Who Van Life:
Links mentioned in this podcast:
Connect with Kristin Hanes and The Wayward Home!
Hey there, this is Kristen Hayes with the wayward home.com, and I spend half the year in my camper van and half on my sailboat. And I hope to help you live your nomadic dreams too. So today we're talking about everyone's favorite topic, which is how to go to the bathroom in a Camper van. I'm literally asked this all the time. And we're also going to talk about some other things about Van Life, of course, with um, Eric and Colby, with engineers who Van Life. And I'm really excited you two are here in the podcast. So thank you so much. Yeah, we're excited to be here. Thanks for having us. Yeah. So I, I just wanna jump in a little bit about like just your intro into Van Life and, um, what got you started with this in the first place? Well, it was Colby's idea and she pitched it to me really early on when we started dating, and I'm like, no, uh, yep. But like, ironically, like shortly after, I ran into two different people. One, I got a running partner, uh, in Portland where we lived at the time. And two, we got an intern at the job, my engineering job, uh, who both lived in their van and they had ventured and they were normal, stable people. And I'm like, okay, maybe this isn't a, you know, too crazy of idea. It's something that like normal people can do. So I brought it back up to Colbin, was like, Hey, you know, you know how you brought up the Van Life thing? And she's like, yes, I already bought one. Now And, and that was kind of the start of it, you know, that that's how we both got on board with, with the. Cool. And Colby, how did you first learn about Van Life? So it was your idea initially, like how did, what sparked your interest in it? Yeah. I don't think we share much about this ever on our Instagram, but when I graduated college, um, I took off to New Zealand and just traveled in a camper van. Um, It was just like this weird calling that I got and I booked the flight and like there was no looking back. And if I hadn't signed an offer with a company in the US I don't think I would've come back. Um, but that was 2018 and then it was just kind of always in my mind, um, I just never really saw it as feasible until, you know, the pandemic and everything became remote and I could still keep my job. And that's when I started talking to him about it. Um, and it became a reality. So I just, I loved every part of it. I hope to go back there someday soon too. Oh, that's so cool. I've heard great things about Van Life in New Zealand and yeah, that could be a whole other topic. That is very exciting. So Oh my gosh. Cool. Yeah. If we go back, we'll, we'll do a podcast for you. We're looking at November-ish maybe so. Oh my gosh. Well, I know. How cool. So that sparked your interest and then you guys f did your first van build after that? Yeah, yeah. It was, uh, summer of 2021, I think. We got the first chassis. Built it out, finished. That one took like six months. We were both still working full-time. So pretty much just building on the weekends, uh, everything is a learning curve. uh, with your first fan build. So be prepared for that. Mm-hmm. uh, but we spent six months building it and then moved in in the winter. Uh, so solar was a problem. Mm-hmm. stayed in inside cuz uh, we were cold, our heater broke. We, we had toilet issues cuz we like DIY at our own toilet cuz that was our whole thing. We were gonna like DIY and everything. Um, we'll get into that, uh, later, I'm sure. But, uh, when did we buy the second van? We ordered the second van almost as soon as we ordered the first van, and it was just a little too small, so it, it took, what, eight months for the second one to arrive. So the whole time in the first one, we knew we were gonna build a second one It just like happened to be. Pretty quick Su success. Succession. Succession. Yeah. So, um, we did that one, but that one we did a little bit differently. Um, yeah, that one I left my, uh, full-time job to build full-time, uh, dedicate more time to, uh, content creation and resource building. Uh, so that one we finished. Three and a half months. And I mean, the build quality going from build one to build two was night and day So it took half the time and it was probably twice as good. Yeah. Wow. And the, your second van, both your vans were Ford Transits, right? Yep. Correct. Yeah. The first one was a 1 48, uh, regular length. And the second one is the, So you went for a bigger van? For the, for the second longer van. For the second one, which is, yeah. definitely. Oh my gosh. Like it's, I think it's 20. inches. Is it 20 or 22? 22. But it feels like feet cuz you get, well you do get the cubic feet from it, but it is a world of a different Cool. That's good to know for people that are looking at vans, like how much big a deal that is. So that's awesome to know. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Cool. So you did mention the fact that you self, you built your own, uh, bathroom or toilet in the first one. I, I'm so curious about that. What did you guys do? We got like a three gallon bucket, so it's the same diameter as a five gallon bucket, but just shorter. So you can like comfortably sit on it. And then he grabbed some like half inch Baltic birch plywood and basically just built a box, a box around it. Um, put a lid on it with like an actual toilet seat. An actual toilet seat. And we were going to, uh, Get like a urine diverter, um, in there. So we could have a liquids container. Oh no, we, but like that never really got built. That's not true. We did, we put, so we bought on Etsy, this like DIY kit for a hundred bucks. It sounded like great idea compared to like a nature's head cuz a hundred versus a thousand. And we ended up just taking one piece of that. The urine inverter mm-hmm. and like taping that in there. and then we just never could get it to compost. Right. So then we started doing like the bags, you know, like just bag it, call it a day. And I think in eight months we used it twice cuz it was so, so painful. It was like emergency only. Yeah. Like, You literally can't go, like, don't have five seconds to dig a hole like kind of thing. And I was still peeing in a bottle. You were still using the shewe? Oh yeah. We didn't even use the, uh, because the, the urine diverter, we had the diverter, but it diverted into like a, we didn't leave enough room for like a decent size. It was urine container, so it was what? Like a one liter bottle or something like it was rainy. It was really dangerous. it was just like stuck in the corner of the box. And so, yeah, so if anyone does di iy it and you're a female, highly recommend the, she. We, you probably heard of this like We pretty much would use the DIY situation for emergency number twos. And then number one, we would save our oat milk, not the cardboard ones. The. The, the California farm, the al ones, and we would use a, she, I would use a shewe and then we would just fill that up. And I just remembered we even literally got rid of that toilet, like, oh yeah, two or three months in. We did, uh, living in the van, it was just so bulky and such a pain to like take out every time it was half inch birch plywood, so it probably weighed like 35. It was heavy and we had to like empty, pull it out of, it wasn't on a drawer slide, so we had to like pull it out of a. Um, so we literally left it on the side of the road and bought like, A collapsible, I forget what it was called. Oh, trove trip. Oh, trove trip. No, no, that's a different thing. It was a collapsible bucket you could put a bag into. Um, it was actually a lot better, but it was like 12 inches tall, so it was like barely taller than like just squatting, we're Actually, we'll send you that link cuz that was actually. If you are not going full composting toilet, I would actually buy this again. It like popped up, put a bag in, it popped out like it was, it was space efficient. Pick up the size of like, What, like maybe two Frisbees stacked together? Yeah. Yeah. It was cool. Wow, that's amazing. And all my toilet research for Vans. I've never seen the collapsible bucket, so thank you. Yeah. Yeah, we'll send it. I think it's somewhere on our blog still. I see some people get it on Amazon sometimes. Yeah. So you guys have been through like the toilet ringer and I, so I'm curious like what kind of bag when you started going to the bag method, like how does somebody even choose the right bag to use? Cause there's so many. Yeah, so I went down the rabbit hole on this and I actually ordered, um, they actually have. I Googled like toilet bag and like they actually have, um, elephant, something makes them, I'll find the exact name and you can put it somewhere, but they're like, for composting, but toilet matter. Mm-hmm. Um, however, if we were to run out of them, cuz they were pretty expensive, um, I just double bagged with. Small trash bags, which are hard to find cuz apparently you can only get the tall ones. But if you can get the small ones, I just, we double bagged it and like it was immediate, like we didn't let'em sit around. It's like, go and then go find yourself a trashcan. I have kind of a funny little, um, side note to that is my dad has a minivan and he camps with us sometimes and he has a folding toilet that he attaches a bag to. So he went in the bag and put it in his cargo fold, you know, that goes on the top of the minivan and he forgot it in there for about three days and, Oh, he's probably gonna kill me for telling that story, but he was like, I'll never do that again. Oh, did it leak or did it just smell? It did not leak. And he used, okay, the smell's gotta permeate through the plastic, I mean, plastic. Plastic is not airtight. Yeah. So a reminder to everyone throw it out. They smell tight right away. Yeah. throw it out. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I feel like two, if you can avoid also going number one, cuz we've learned that the liquid. is the reason things smell a lot like outhouses and things, or you shouldn't really go to pee in them. You should just do number two. So there's a good tip, Yeah. That's amazing cuz people have no idea and then they create this like weird concoction that gets very smelly and they don't know how to deal with it and stuff. Yep, yep, yep. It's a great tip. Separate. Separate. We've definitely, we've definitely tried the bag method. The, uh, just using a garbage can like this tiny garbage can. Yep. Mm-hmm. So we've tried that. So cool. So that's how you guys started with your first van. You totally took the toilet out and, Yeah. Some, another thing that fan lifers aren't aware of is the pea bottle thing. You guys mentioned that very briefly, but every Van Lifer has a, a pea bottle. You know, people don't realize that. I think so. Yeah. And like no need to, because I remember when we were building, I was like researching like P Jug, P Jug, and they're super overpriced. Like, just get whatever. Get your groceries and I bet you something will work as your p Like replace it every couple weeks. Like we would not keep it for a while, but no need to like get some p jug thing. Like just use whatever Totally. Make containers. Yeah. Yeah. The more opaque the better. Probably Yes, definitely. Which I liked your almond milk idea. That was very interesting. I have, we've used a huge cat litter container with a wide mouth, and that worked really well. It's opaque and white on the outside. That's perfect. Can carry it. It around, has a handle. Nobody knows. So yeah, just. Going to the bathroom Exactly. So have you guys tried the portable toilet thing? The chemical toilet thing at all? Have you seen those? No, we have seen them. We haven't personally tried it or even met anybody with it. We just really have the compost toilet experience. Yeah. What made you guys, like you tried to do a DIY one in your first van? I, but what? Why did you want one in the first place? Like what about a composting toilet was appealing to you guys? well, we wanted the ability to like be comfortable in our family. Yeah. If you can't go to the bathroom, it really limits where you can go. Like you always have to be. at or near a restroom. Um, and 90% of the time you're like close to a restroom anyways cuz you get mm-hmm. you get gas, you go grocery shopping, you, you know, fill up on water or go to go to a park mm-hmm. Um, but it's that 10% of the time that like, makes it all worth it. It does. And that's like a good principle for a lot of things in the van is like, if you use it once a month, it was worth it. Like we were also kind of thinking forward to right now we're in, in Colorado, um, skiing all winter and you can't really dig a hole like in the snow. It's a little more obvious. Mm-hmm. um, and not Right. And a lot of places close, like the grocery store, the gas station are closed. So we were kind of thinking forward, like we actually might need somewhere to go more. This winter, and we actually have used it a lot more this winter because of that. Yeah. So tell me about the toilet you chose for this van, your second. Yeah, so it is, um, the Campo Closet Cudi and it actually came on the market, like right as I was picking one out. And to our knowledge, I've seen a couple since, but it was the first one to like actually take into account van life. Um, and the considerations you need like. dimension wise and like, can you get to the agitator? Um, whereas a lot of the composting toilets before that were really, really good, but they were made for tiny homes. Um, you know, things that aren't moving all the time or like you had more space. So I saw like the agitator handle was on the front. The box dimensions allowed us to like have our seat that it sit in, sits in, be a normal height. and it's very simple. Like, it's like all you do is have the number one container, which is black, not op, not clear, which some other ones are, and then the solids that you just, you know, um, pick up and, and dig a big hole and, and cover it. Um, it was just simple and, and gray and it's a little bit cheaper than some of the other ones out. Yeah, for sure. And it's so small. Yeah. I mentioned to you guys before, I've been testing one as well. Mine sadly came with a, a crack in the body of it and they're going to replace it of course, but Oh no, I noticed. I think it was slightly smellier than it should be because it wasn't an enclosed Oh, knit. So I'm, I'm going to give it another try because everyone I've spoken to, like you guys say, it works. Fantastic. Like, tell us a little bit about how your experience, it was the cut that you had mm-hmm. that was cracked. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's the bummer because, so we even cut a corner and did not install the fan just cuz it sits in our shower and we didn't wanna deal with, uh, a cord going into our shower. So we, and even without the fan, like people wouldn't even know we have a. A toilet in there. I think at the beginning the liquids were smelling, but I realized that's because I wasn't closing the lid and that was like user error. Um, but I don't know. How do you think it is? It's really contained in the box. Yeah. Because the cut itself has like two layers of, of lids. And then in our shower, oh, we have like another, I mean, paper stone lid provides a, you know, solid surface for the bench. and then I guess a, a cushion on top of that. But yeah, so even like we fully contain the contained toilet. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you can follow Yeah, totally. That makes a big difference. Cuz you know, I did test it because it does, did have the cracks in it. Um, so I, I had it in a, my old van while we were building out the new one. And so I put it in the old one. I sat it there and when we left I actually, I emptied it, but I didn't like clean out the bin and I was like, I'm gonna leave this in this van for a week. And see if it stinks and it didn't. It didn't stink, you know? Cause I had it all shut up and Yep. So I think that when used properly and when they're not like prepped or have any issues, they work, they seem to work really well. So yeah, that's good. Definitely. Yeah. I think it's gonna be once they get their like um, cuz they're kind of running the startup model right now with batches. I think once, like they can do faster production cuz I think we waited like. 18 weeks or something, that extra production, and they'll figure out the weak points in their design too and fix'em. Yeah. I mean, with any, you know, version one product, you're gonna have those little tweaks that, that you need to make. Yeah, totally. And also for people who've never, you know, used these or heard of'em, like what is, if you guys could describe like the compost bin and kind of how you prepare that for going to the bathroom with the composting toilet. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's really simple. So we do p cocoa core or peat moss. Um, you buy it in like, I wish we were in the van cuz we could show you, but like a really compact brick. I'm sure people have seen it. Um, and basically we hydrate it in a little bag. Um, and then the way we do it is, We'll start with the fresh bin. So we, we put enough in such that like the bottom inch of the agitator arms are covered. Um, and then after every go we add probably a cup or two more. Um, probably adds a cup. I add like, two or three times which just means we empty it earlier. But you know, the more the, the merrier, I think in that situation, except that you have to empty it more. Um, but then, yeah, once it's, you know, once when you're agitating it, like stuff is like almost falling out, that's when we'll just, you know, either bag it up and toss it or. We prefer, since it's composted to like go to the national forest and dig. It takes a while to dig a hole big enough for that barrel, but dig a hole, you know? So the top is six inches down and bury it. It's, it composts like, it looks like dirt, honestly. Totally. And then, so a tip is you don't put, um, toilet paper in it, right? Oh no. Oh my gosh. No, we, uh, we do bag. and throw it away separately. So we, yeah, we keep a thing of zip locks by our toilet. Um, this is like a very heated debate. Apparently people have been, recently, we've seen a lot of polls on Instagram. Do you put your TP in the toilet or not? It's like, no, So some people do that you've heard of into the common Oh, yeah. Apparently Nature's Head does recommend putting your TP. Wow, that's really interesting. Cause I've never heard You're like supposed to, I've always done what you guys have done and not put it in there. Yeah. But wow. That's interesting. I mean, I would think that it would compost just fine. It would just get stuck in the agitator and you don't wanna be like having to like pick that out of the agitator Totally. That sounds gross. So so the cut seems very lightweight and I'm just saying all this of our, the audience can understand it, so you lift it up and you. Like it's light enough to just put it in a bag, right? The bucket, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so you don't even need to pick the whole toilet. Um, it's like a little black bin in there with a handle that folds behind out of the way, so you don't get stuff on it. Um, you just pick it up, walk. Actually sometimes we do take the whole toilet outside and, and then pull it out just in case there's a little spill. Um, but it's less. 10 pounds or five, or, I'm a bad estimator. I mean, in four months that we've been in Rover, we've probably emptied it twice. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, we're new to it. It's a new toilet. Yeah. And we haven't had it for years, so we're still. We've had it for four months, but we're still in the testing phase. Yeah. It's working well so far, but it's not like we can speak to, you know, years and years of emptying it. Yeah, totally. But two times and four months is pretty good. That's amazing. Yeah. And do you guys, do you guys use other bathrooms as well? Besides that one? We probably only, you know, go number two in it. Twice a month. Twice a month. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Cool. So it's pretty infrequent. Yeah. So it's kinda like a backup system to going in a public bathroom if there is one. Yeah, it's backup for number two. We almost exclusively use it for number one, like I would say. And for that, I mean, we empty the P jug every two, one to two days. Yeah. Cause that fills up really quickly. Yeah, definitely. Because you can plan your solids. I mean, we're at the ski hill almost every day. Yeah. You know, and they got bathrooms, grocery stores, Reis, and we both like going outside in the summer, like we'd rather go find like a nice spot up. With a nice view and dig hole. It's a nice excuse to just like get out of the van sometimes too. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's funny. I totally agree with you. I think people who aren't Van Lifers would think we are crazy, but me and my partner Tom, talk about that. We're like, it has a great view. It's very clean. There's no germs. It's like, oh my gosh, air fresh air doesn't stink. No, and it's like an optimal position too. I know. Like you're supposed to be that And that makes me laugh because I was just seeing this ad on Instagram or somewhere for the Squatty Potty and I'm like, I do not need that Yeah. Cause I'm like, good enough. Fully squatting, Yeah. It just brings your legs up. Yeah. We don't need to pay for that. We got that for free out in the woods. Yeah, and we're talking about how it keeps your body kind of fitting in shape. Cuz a lot of people like can no longer squat, I've noticed. Oh. Like as they age, like the squatting becomes very difficult. Like my Tom has been working on his squat because he became stiff, you know, as he aged, but he's now like, oh. And a low squat. So it's actually very good for our physiology too. Yeah, Wow, I never thought of that. Yeah, totally Totally. So I'm sure everybody thinks we're crazy that isn't in van life, but this is how it is. Yep. So yeah, I wanted to talk about a little bit of that too, that the digging the whole principles, if you guys had any advice to share with the, uh, you mentioned the six inches. Just if you had any advice about that for people who are trying that for the first time. Oh yeah. Do you wanna speak to Elliot? Uh, I mean, sometimes you'll go to campsites and, and you walk in the woods and, oh, you just see like everybody's holes and toilet paper coming up and it's, it's really disappointing to see. So my philosophy is always go like, Twice as far as the furthest like hole that you see, I mean, I will literally walk for like three minutes. You will back in the woods. Like we could be on a plane and you could like hardly see me when I go. So I always air on the side of. Go further from the campsite rather than take your hole, you know, two inches deeper or, you know, bicker about like six inches or four inches, eight inches. Yeah. Um, just like go further as like step number one away from water too. Campsite and water. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then a lot of times it's not like I'm digging in a garden where it's really dense soil. I mean, it's like, you know, all the detri in, on the forest floor. So it just kind of comes up, you know, I'll peel back like a big, uh, you know, like, you know, two square foot area of moss. Great idea. Like peel it back and then like my pull below. Pretty shallow. It's just a little plastic spade. Yeah. You know, deposit, little bit of dirt. And then that whole like flap of, of like moss just on top of it. We're big Moss fans. Like that's one of the best ways we think to make sure no one gets there. And the only thing I would say should be visible is like, Sometimes you could put like a warning stick, I think like a, there's a hole here. Move elsewhere. Like, but that you should never have TP or you shouldn't put your tp. We also bag our TP when we are going, you know, in the woods, in the national forest. Yeah. We'll take that out with us. So, you know, cuz animals will dig that up and then like it's easy to see. Yeah. And tagging around. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's very true. But typically it's pretty easy, like you were saying in the summer when it's not snowing to just find somewhere to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just like think about what you don't wanna see when you're camping and don't do that Totally. I totally agree. Cause I've seen that too. Like that just, yeah. People don't even bother even trying to bury it sometimes it seems like there's this like toilet paper thrown around. I'm like, what? It's just, oh, it. It's like 15 feet from the campsite too. Yeah. It's like you could like toss a rock from the Camp Pitt and like hit somebody's spot. It's like, yeah. And no, I'm like 200 yards away. Yeah. And I think if, if people like need a reminder, one of the things that I think about a lot is like, dogs get really sick when they eat human. Poop. Oh, we just learned this from, yeah, so whenever I'm like, I don't know if my hole's deep enough, I'll just think of dogs and dig a little deeper because dogs find stuff like, even if it's far. So just think about like the dogs that might be camping there or anything like that. It's not good for them. At all. That's a good point. Yeah. One of my van life where I followed her dog, dug up some poo and apparently it had, um, marijuana in it. Cause the person had smoked a lot or eaten, I guess eaten a lot. And the dog got sick, like stoned and it was really bad. Yeah. Was like, it was like a crazy story. But she, she was like, please dig a deeper. Yeah, no. Everyone dig a deeper hold. Think about that story. That's what I'm gonna think of now. Totally Yeah, that's, it's a good thing to bring up. So, cool. So you guys have the, that's such good advice you have that you have the composting toilet, but it's just for a few times a month and it works to have in an emergency. Yeah. So I like that. And yeah. Um, was there anything I'm missing about composting toilets? I think we covered a lot of it, unless something else people need to know. I don't think so. I think the key is like, you know, separate the two, don't put your TP in. And um, I don't know, maybe. Oh, I do think like if you're just building a van, like that is one of, if you know you wanted a toilet, that is one of the things you should get the dimensions of early. Cause they're big and you will have to build something around it. Like we were lucky enough, we actually have the dimensions on our blog of like how we built our shower box to fit our toilet. Um, but you know, we had. the dimensions of the toilet. Were a key decision maker in buying it. Um, just cuz of how it fit. But I think that's all, that's a good point to Yeah. Measure it out and know which one you want before. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's great advice. Cool. Well, while we're talking about bathrooms, I'm also curious about your shower situation. You guys have an interesting, um, thing going on. So tell us about, about that. I kind of modeled it after seven Oh savages. Mm-hmm. uh, shower and his, uh, his van. Um, so it's folds up into a bench seat and I mean, I built a frame out of, uh, 10 series 80 20, um, and then got, uh, what some 16 gauge stainless steel sheet, um, and actually welded a solid frame exactly custom to just slip in. uh, inside that, that frame. So the, the pan itself is, you know, fully custom. It's 18 inches high. Um, you know, 30 inches by, 30 by 20. 30 by 20, yeah. Um, and the, the shower curtain just kind of funnels, uh, you know, grabs up higher, wider, and just funnels into the shower, um, because it's a stainless steel pan and. I'm not the expert welder Um, I, this was the one project that I couldn't DIY and I had to, uh, I guess subcontract out Uh, it's not a sloped drain that we got, so we have a, it's a seven eighth inch, or no, it's a one and a one and a quarter inch drain. I think it's pretty small on a flat bottom. Um, so every time you set it up, we do have to like, squeegee it out and, you know, soak it up, dry it up. Um, You know, before we put it all back away. So that's the one like, uh, pain point of using it. I'd say right now we're on a, uh, once every third day uh, pretty, and you know, we both shower at the same time, so we just have to set it up once, take it down once. Mm-hmm. um, little bit of an activity. Uh, uh, but I mean, it just, I don't know. It works. We got, we got hot. I think too. Yeah, like the, the bench, the stowaway shower in a bench is really good for air space. Like we knew we wanted to be able to host people. Mm-hmm. So like, now when people are over, we don't have this floor to ceiling shower that we use once every three days. We have this bench that people can sit on every day and then, you know, every three days we pull out a shower curtain and attach it to the ceiling and it, it does the trick. Um, I think it's perfect for. Yeah, the priority was maintaining space in the van. Yeah. You know, keeping that open up. We've had, you know, two friends over and it feels like you got all the space in the world. Um, yeah. They walk in, they're like, wow, your fan feels like twice as big as mine even though they're like, you know, about the same size Yeah. Yeah. Good use of space. And then, so for your, what kind of shower head do you use for that? It's just a, um, handheld, Shower, like it, it sts at the bottom and then it's got an eight full, we got a longer eight foot shower hose. Mm-hmm. and we just hold it. Um, but the key is it, it turns on and off at the head. So while you're showering, when you're in a van, you're saving water. So it's not a continuous shower. It could be. But what we do is, you know, we turn it on, we get wet, we do our hair, you know, turn on again, like turn it off on, off on. Um, and it just saves water. But it's really important to have the control at the head, I think. because especially in the winter, uh, water fills are hard to find. Yeah. So the two of us are stretching our 32 gallon water tank, like 10 days. Wow. I mean, we, we, yeah. Our first week we, we did two weeks. Mm-hmm. between fills, which, you know, works out to a gallon per person per day. Maybe a gallon and a half. That's crazy. I mean, that's, you know, dishes probably twice a day. A little bit of drinking water. We get most of our drinking water from. The resort, you just filling up our water bottles at fill stations. Yeah. Um, and showering. So, I mean, I don't know how much water we eat use showering. I imagine it's gallon or 2 2 2 to three gallons. Two gallons probably. It's, it's not a, it's not a 15 minute shower, but yeah, that the, the one key for the shower head is to have the button like control at the shower. Yeah, that's a really, I love that idea. Yeah, we take a solar shower outside, but still like the same amount of water you guys used, like just the tiniest bit for each person and Yeah. Yeah. Turning it on and off. So I guess that's one benefit of house sitting like we're doing now, is we can take Yeah. Very long. Showers, oh my gosh. Every day. What is happening? I don't want like my body to get used to showering every time. Such luxury daily shower, I know. Yeah, so cool. So you guys, um, you use that about every three days then, and Wow, that's a long time to make it last your tank. That's impressive. So yeah, we, one of the best things we did when, um, winter started was we, oh, we have two like now jeans, but we went to r e i and we bought this like three liter bladder that packs down like. Really small and we put it in our pocket when we're skiing and every morning and probably evening, we will fill up three liters at those, you know, stations at the resort or the grocery store. Um, and that's like all our cooking and drinking water. And I think that has given us like extra days period. Yeah. Cause we'll make our coffee from that, you know, when we cook, you know, spaghetti or rice noodles, we're just using that water. Yeah. Um, so that's how we extend the life of our tank. In the summer, it's, it's easy. It's not the chore of like filling the water tank, it's finding a spigot in Colorado that's not winterized. Yeah, that totally makes sense. The winter's a different gay animal than the summer for sure. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. But the topic of water's interesting because I just read the average family uses a thousand gallons a month and yeah, it's, it's shocking for us van lifers who use way less So yeah, that was an interesting fact, but I'm surprised it's even that low cuz that's only, yeah. Uh, what, 33 gallons a. For a family. I call it a family of three. I mean even that's like 10 gallons. I mean for most people it's a five minute shower. Right. I know. So cool. So one more thing I wanted to ask you guys, cuz I know you talk about this a lot on your Instagram is your build um, materials, which is very interesting and unique. If you can talk about your, um, aluminum, um, experience. Mm-hmm. that's you, So yeah, we. An aluminum ex aluminum extrusion called 80 20 for almost all of our, uh, structural components in our van. Um, one of the biggest concerns for us was just weight in a van. Um, a lot of people don't realize that, uh, you know, when you're talking about a full build. um, the weight actually adds up really quickly. Mm-hmm. um, and a lot of vans finish over their gross vehicle weight rating, which means, you know, their, their tires, their brakes, their engine, their, you know, alternative, all, all their parts on their car wear out faster. Um, aside from it being illegal aside from it being, uh, a safety concern, um, you know, if your vehicle's. weight, it can't stop as quickly. Yeah. You know, cause your brake pads have ratings to them. Um, the suspension has a rating to it, you know, if you hit a bump and you're overweight, like you're just gonna be bottoming out your, uh, suspension all the time. Um, so aluminum is, you know, a lightweight metal. It's, uh, rigid, has very great, um, tenile strength and sheer strength. Mm-hmm. um, so you don't need nearly as much of it. Mm-hmm. um, relative to wood. So our bed system is like three bars Yeah. Of 80, 21, uh, 15 series. So inch and a half thick. Um, and it's not a solid profile. It's kind of this like hollowish, it's this like X shape with like arrows on all of the, all of the uh, um, ends. Uh, it's. It's an efficient use of, of space to maximize like the strength of the profile. Yeah, so like our bed system probably weighs, I have no idea. we got nothing. I mean the aluminum probably weighs like 30 to 40 pounds and then the plywood on top of it and other. you know, it's just half inch, so 30, 30 pounds, and it's also really square to work with, like every module. And I'm pretty sure we, on our blog, we at least have build guides for most, you know, cabinets, gales beds, showers, all those things by now. But it's just like a really simple way to build square, lightweight, but like ridiculously strong. Vans that'll last forever. It's, it's a perfectly homogenous material. Yeah. But you're never going to get, uh, you know, a knot in your wood that'll have a, induce a weak point. Mm-hmm. there'll never be an issue of the grain, you know, like, like Boeing or curving one way. Uh, and Colby was Right. It's, in some ways it's, more difficult to learn how to use mm-hmm. but like, actually building it, like it turns out perfect. Everything is perfectly square. It requires, you know, no talent to like tighten things down correctly. And then you have like perfectly square Gales. Mm-hmm. you know, all your, your boxes are shoe storage. Our bed, our cabinets, um, I mean, they're perfectly square and it's aluminum, so they're never going to like, expand. Expand and contract or squeak. Um, squeak. Yeah. Yeah. So like the, the build quality that comes out of it is, uh, I think far and away better than, uh, better than wood Uh, there is an aesthetic to it. Um, you know, some people will cover their mm-hmm. uh, 80 20 or their aluminum extrusion with, uh, like plywood cause they don't wanna see the, the metal. Um, we didn't mind it, so we left a lot of it, uh, exposed. You'll see in our build. Mm-hmm. um, but that was a, a, I'd call it a design choice. Yeah. Uh, on our. Very cool. Yeah. And I know you guys have written a lot so people can find a lot of, um, guides on your engineers who, van Life blog, correct? Mm-hmm. yeah. Mm-hmm. there's a lot to learn. I mean, yeah. There are all sorts of, you know, fasteners and connectors for different, you know, angles that you want things to come in at or. I would say a good starting point is we've recently launched like a beginner's guide where we basically like distill it down to like four to five fasteners that you might use instead of the like hundred that 80 20 has available on their website. Um, so that would be a really good place to start and then dig into the individual modules. It's definitely more expensive than wood. Yeah. Uh, it requires some specialty tools, especially just to cut, um, the lengths. But if you do a good job planning mm-hmm. uh, like literally drafting out your modules so you know every single length that you need, you can get. It all like precut pre machine by 80 20. So when it arrives it's basically just like Lincoln Logs. Yeah, it's, and like you're putting it all together and it all fits and, you know, kind of loose fit it, make sure it, you know, fits in the van. And then once it's all set in place, like then on every single bolt, put a little bit of blue lock, tight in, crank it down one final time. So it's all locked into place. And then you'll be good to go. Yeah. Because if you don't use lock tight as soon as you start driving Yes. Right. And all the vibrations from the road, you're gonna have bolts just all over your floor and your. Module's gonna fall apart and you're gonna be sad. Learn from experience Oh my gosh. So GE is locked tight. Yes. Cool. Well thank you guys so much for sharing all your tips. Um, if you could just tell people again where to find you on the internet. Of course. I'll put all the links below, but the show notes. But just tell us, uh, where to find you. Yeah, it's just engineers who vanlife on, uh, Instagram or engineers of vanlife.com on the. As our blog. Yeah, that's us. Fantastic. Cool. Well thank you so much for coming on. It was super fun talking to you guys, so yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having us. We enjoyed talking about, uh, showers and toilets and aluminum. Of course. We love it all.