Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some FAQs about tent living. Please post more questions if you have them!

Why do you live this way?
Well, that's sort of a long story.

Do you have electricity?
I don't have electrical service, but I do have a few battery operated devices like a flashlight and a beard trimmer. I also have a battery operated CD player. I really don't miss electricity.

How do you light your tent at night?
I mainly use candles for lighting, especially in the warmer months. I also use kerosene lamps sometimes, like when I have guests, or when I cook or read.

Do you have refrigeration?
No, I don't have refrigeration. I have a cooler that I pack with ice when I have guests sometimes, mainly for beverages. As a consequence, I have no way to preserve my leftover food during the warmer months so I plan my meals accordingly. And I can't keep refrigerated foods like fresh meats and dairy on hand, so I shop accordingly by buying fresh foods on my way home from work, to be cooked and eaten that evening for dinner. The only thing that I miss is cold beer! I just can't get used to warm beer.

How do you cook?
I have a fully-functional kitchen featuring a two-burner gas camp stove and a camp oven. The oven doesn't work very well though. I can't really bake anything. It only gets up to around 250 degrees. Great for warming things, and okay for nachos and pizza. The stove operates on LP, and I have a 20 lbs tank outside connected to the stove by a 10' adaptor hose.

Where do you get your water?
I get all of my water from an outside source and carry to my tent using seven-gallon containers. I consume about three gallons a day for bathing, cooking, and cleaning (note that my toilet doesn't use water). Before I moved to Brandy Station, I filled my containers at a nearby convenience store for $1 per container. Now, I get my water for free from my landlord from an outside spigot on his guest house.

What about bathing?
I take sponge baths using wash clothes and a wash basin. Since I carry in my water, it's precious to me and this type of bathing helps me conserve water. I can bathe my entire body using only about 1 1/2 gallons of water. And I don't need a tub or shower, which occupy space and consume a lot of water. I have a dedicated eight-quart pot for hot water. I fill it with cold water and heat it on my gas cook stove. It heats to bathing temperature in about 10 minutes.

How do you wash dishes?
I wash and rinse my dishes by hand using a plastic dish pan. As with bathing, I heat my water on the stove using the hot water pot. I get water a little hotter for dishes so it takes a bit longer to heat, but it's the same idea as bathing. I dump the wash and rinse water down the dump sink when I'm finished, and I stack the dishes in a dish drainer to air dry.

How do you wash your clothes?
I usually go to the laundromat. Sometimes my friends invite me to do laundry at their house while I hang out and visit.

What is your toilet like?
I use my dump sink as a urinal. It's plumbed to a dry well outside. The dump sink handles all of my grey water, including urine. For solid waste I use an earth closet that I built from plywood and five-gallon buckets. I use sawdust instead of earth to cover the waste, and periodically dump it to a tree bog. This system doesn't use any water and doesn't require any sort of underground septic system.

Do you get cold in the winter?
Yes, I get cold in the winter, but only for short periods. Like when I get up in the morning. The inside temperature in the morning is nearly the same as the outside because my wood stove, which is my main heating source, only keeps the tent comfortable for maybe six hours or so. After that, the cold starts creeping in pretty quickly. So my winter mornings consist of me running out to my front stoop to quickly light my kerosene heater, then throwing some wood in the stove, then quickly  jumping back into bed for a 10-minute snooze! My bed is plenty warm since I pile on blankets, sleeping bags, a down comforters, and so on. And I sleep in long underwear so it's actually all pretty tolerable. But it'll wake you up in the morning!

The other cold period is when I get home from work in the evenings and the wood stove is once again down to just coals. Again, I have to get the stove going, and that takes about 15 minutes or so. I just leave my coat on and huddle around the stove pipe for a bit until things warm up.

Other than that, it's actually very warm and cozy in the winter. In fact, I've probably had more challenges keeping the space cool enough. It's difficult to regulate the wood stove in such a small space and I've often seen the temperature creep up to 90 degrees plus. I've even had to open the front door and let some cold winter air in to cool things down at times.

Do you get hot in the summer?
Yes, I get hot in the summer. Very hot! My first summer in a tent was the summer of 2012. I had just moved to a new location that April so I was still a bit disorganized as the summer began heating up. By August, I had finally gotten things figured out, and my body had acclimated to the heat by then. I found four things that helped me fight the summer heat: a rain fly that helped shade my tent, an outdoor living area where I could sit in the shade, plenty of cold baths, and very few clothes. By the end of summer, I had acclimated to where 95 degrees felt like "room temperature" to me.

Do you stay dry when it rains?
Yes, I stay very dry even during heavy rains. That's because I have a very large rain fly with plenty of overhang all around my tent, and the tent is up on a wooden platform, well off the ground. High and dry!

What did it cost?
The whole thing cost less than $3000. I didn't keep very good records, but I have a breakdown that's pretty close.