I saw a video about a guy who is being evicted because his trailer is off the grid. No electricity, no water — so in the interest of protecting his health, the government is going to make him homeless.

Well, as it turns out, electricity is pretty easy to get off the grid. Just buy some solar panels, an inverter, and a few batteries, and you’ve got power.

Water is another matter. I looked up the average water usage per person, and the Internet tells me ridiculous numbers, like two hundred gallons a day. That’s a lot of toilet flushes, so I presume industrial usage is in there somewhere.

Anyhow, I came up with this rain water collector concept:

Around here in Greater Seattle, we get 40 inches of rainfall per year, which works out to about thirty cubic feet per square yard. Two of these and you get more than a gallon a day. Which is okay for a ration of drinking water, providing your lifestyle includes outhouses and sponge baths. Ah, the simple life.

(NOTE: This entry revised 9 Dec because I failed to convert from cubic feet to gallons. DOH!)