The summertime can be a taxing time for municipal water levels, conservation of water is of utmost importance when the warm weather comes rolling in. As you’ll see in the following post, putting a plug in at-home water waste is a lot easier than expected!
- Fix any leaky faucets and pipes – a tiny drip from a faucet can waste up to 20 gallons of water per day! Save money and water by installing low flow faucet aerators.
- Use your toilet for its intended purpose, not as a garbage bucket – toilets can waste up to 7 gallons of water per flush, that’s quite a bit of water to get rid of a tissue you blew your nose with.
- If it’s yellow, let it mellow… while this may not be an appealing way to save water take into consideration how much water is wasted per flush!
- Check see if your toilet is wasting water – put some food coloring in the tank and wait for a bit, if the water in the bowl starts showing the food coloring you used, you need to fix it!
- Take shorter showers and install water-saving shower heads – while there’s nothing more enjoyable than a long hot shower, it accounts for nearly 1.2 trillion gallons of water used in the US annually! Installing low-flow shower heads can save you up to 2.5 gallons a minute. Another way to save water in the shower – use a bucket to catch the water from the tap while waiting for the water to warm up – it can be used for watering plants, flushing the toilet or rinsing off veggies or dishes.
- Install High Efficiency Toilets (HETs) in your house – look for toilets that have the WaterSense logo on them since they consume as little as 1.6 gallons per flush. A marked improvement from older toilets which can waste 3.5, 5 or even 7 gallons of water per flush!
- Convert your old toilet into a low flush toilet – this is great way to cut down on water waste every time you flush, especially if you have an older toilet.
- Don’t leave the water running when brushing your teeth – all you really need is a little water to wet your brush, so why keep the faucet running?
- Shaving? Turn off the tap – fill up the sink with a bit of water or only turn the faucet on when you need to rinse off the razor during a shave.
- Only use dishwashers and washing machines when fully loaded – a full load means more bang for your buck and more water savings. Newer washing machines have been designed to use less water per load, and many new dishwashers don’t require dishes to be pre-rinsed, keeping water waste to a minimum.
- If washing dishes by hand, don’t run the tap to rinse – if you happen to have a double sink, fill up one for washing and the other for rinsing, if you only have one sink fill up a small tub or bucket for rinsing.
- Rinsing fruits or veggies? Don’t leave the faucet running – see a pattern here? The average faucet runs 2.5 gallons of water per minute so turn it off to keep water waste down to a minimum.
- Dirty car? Use a car wash not the garden hose – if you have the urge to give Ol’ Betsy a good cleaning, take it to a car wash since they are designed for washing cars efficiently, not your garden hose.
- Use less energy – conserving water goes beyond the four walls of your house. Power plants use thousands of gallons of water to keep cool so less energy consumption means less water waste.
Once you’ve conquered water conservation in you home, take it outside to your garden and lawn.
Want to really step up your water conservation game? Why not install an at home water recycling system. Water is one of the most precious resources we have on this planet and it’s important for us to keep water waste to a minimum and conserve as much as possible.
Sources:
http://eartheasy.com/live_water_saving.htm
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-fix-a-leaky-toilet-tank.html
http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/products/showerheads.html
http://www.agreatshower.com/guide-best-low-flow-shower-head/
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/20-ways-to-conserve-water-at-home.html
