Good ideas re the water storage/reclamation.

Rather than just reclaim/recycle the shower water, why not reclaim/recycle the water from the kitchen sink as well (and any other gray water sources, though I can't think of what they would be).

For particulates coming off the dinner plates and for chemicals coming off the hands while washing (grease, etc.), an intermediate quick-clean filter (under the sink?) would pre-filter the water.

My complaint/concern with this aspect of common RV design is the shower, but why not improve the whole thing . . . good point you've made.

That fuel-cell generator now being produced by Daimler-Benz - isn't water a byproduct of these things? That could be integrated into the system too, if there's enough H2O volume to warrant it.

Even for the Inland Empire crowd, why in Vishnu's name would anyone need "privacy" to wash their hands?

I think sinks in the bathroom is far more a matter of convention rather than a result of widespread demand. My opinion is that most people who buy small RV's don't give much thought to what better could be done with the space, occupied as they are with choosing between two or three boilerplate floorplans with their lame efforts to replicate a suburban tract home.

There are so many more improvements to RV design that cry out to be heard. I have an entire list, but at the top of it is eliminating the black water tank and replacing it with an incinerating toilet, and improving the shower situation.

My most recent entry to the list is replacing all or most of the incandascent and flourescent lighting with LED's. They draw next to no electricity and are immune to over-the-road vibration. What a glaringly obvious improvement - are any of the RV builders doing it? I went through a suburban RV show (El Cajon, CA) a couple days ago. I didn't see any new ideas, unless you count sticking another slideout on a tin box a new idea.

The mainstream RV manufacturers are going to continue as they're going, staying a solid 20 years behind where they could be. As long as brainless people continue to give them money for their junk they are not going to change (it's just awfully fun to ridicule them, as with Detroit and their vast lots of (finally!) unsold SUV's).

My thought is to stimulate ideas and responses among the living with an eye toward that day when we build our own, starting with a hybrid diesel-electric chassis.

Mike