Carbon Footprint: House vs. RV

For the past 7 years, Denise and I have lived in a small house in North Austin. Soon, we'll put that house on the market so we can buy an RV and travel full time. I've been wondering, how will living in an RV affect my impact on the environment?

Gardening and composting have been a big part of my life for the past 7 years. Photo courtesy Compost Pedallers

A carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted as a by product of the consumption of fossil fuels. Rob Wells offers an excellent explanation. That includes the gasoline in our cars, the coal that generates the electricity in our homes, and the energy that goes into growing and transporting our food. I chose The Nature Conservancy's Free Carbon Footprint Calculator. It's easy to use and thorough, but not too detailed. The calculator also offers ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

Here are our results:

We're a family of 3 with 2 vehicles living in a 1,100 square-foot house. Our household rated better than about a third of similarly sized households, producing about 31 tons of carbon dioxide each year. We did best in the travel category, partly because work near home, but also because we don't travel out of town much. We also did better than average in the purchase of goods and services, mostly because we're frugal, buy second hand, and pickup freebies from Craigslist. We did worst in the home category, because we have an older all-electric house that's poorly insulated.

Granted, this is a simple survey that relies on self-reporting, but I did look up my utility usage and refer to my bank account for the spending categories. I relied on the average calorie counts for each of the food categories because I don't count calories.

One thing I was not able to include in the calculator is my composting or gardening. These days, I'm not doing much of either. At the height of my work, I kept an average of about 12 tons of organic material out of the landfill each year. About 8 people dropped off their kitchen scraps at my house, I collected compostable material from my office and a nearby brewery, composted my dog's poop, taught composting workshops, and I maintained several garden beds, which included managing Gardens at Gus Garcia community garden. That's a lot to let go of, so I plan find ways to compost and garden on the road.

I don't know exactly how my life will change living full-time in an RV, but I think it's likely I'll consume a few less resources. For example, I won't have a yard or gardens to water, plus we'll have to rely on a small reservoir of water for all of our needs, so no more long showers. I imagine we'll also be more conservative with our food. We'll have less room to store food, plus no more chickens. It had become routine not to worry about cooking too much or eating all the leftovers because we could just pitch them into the compost bin or chicken run.

Most people might guess full-time travelers would spend way more on fuel compared to people living in a house. That could be possible for some people, but I think we might actually spend less. We currently have 2 vehicles, traveling a combined 12,000 miles each year. Since we expect to stay put for months at a time, it's likely we'll travel fewer miles each year. We also haven't decided if we'll take a smaller vehicle with us, which could be a compact car or even a motorcycle.

It's all speculation at this point, so it'll be interesting to revisit this topic after we've been on the road for a while. "Proof that Vandwelling is Greener than House Dwelling" by Rob Wells offers a lot of encouragement and inspiration.