Reduce Your Water Consumption

5 Simple Things You Can Do Now

1. Turn the faucet off when brushing your teeth. Can save 5-10 gallons a day.
2. Turn off the water while shaving or washing your face. Fill the bottom of the sink with a few inches of water to rinse your razor. Can save three gallons each day.
3. Install an aerator on your faucets that will limit the maximum flow rate to 1.0 gallons per minute (GPM). It can save up to 55% more water and energy than a standard 2.2 GPM aerator equivalent to 13,140 gallons of water per year and cost under $5.
4. Install a low-flow showerhead that will help you use less water while maintaining high pressure. Switching from a standard 2.5 GPM showerhead to a 1.5 GPM low-flow showerhead can save 40% more water and energy amounting to around 7,300 gallons per year. Cost is under $25.
5. Use a toilet tank dam or water bottle in your toilet’s tank. This will help displace the water, allowing the toilet to use less water after each flush. Toilet tank dams or banks can save up to 30% per flush and cost between $3-6.

Save Water. Save Money!

Here are more ways that you can reduce water consumption in your own home for little or no cost:

Indoors

1. Wash only on a full load for both washers and dishwashers to cut down on the number of cycles and water used.
2. Avoid the permanent press cycle when washing clothes, which uses an additional 5 gallons for the extra rinse.
3. Fix leaky faucets and showerheads which can lead to gallons of water wasted. A single slow leaky faucet dripping 30 drops per minute wastes 3 gallons per day, or the equivalent of 27 baths per year. Dripping showerheads can waste 75 to several hundred gallons of water a week, depending on the size of the drip. To prevent leaks you can also wrap a bit of Teflon tape that costs under $1 around your shower arm threads before installing a showerhead to insure a tight seal.
4. Start a compost pile for food waste instead of using the garbage disposal which requires significant water use.
5. Keep a pitcher of drinking water in the refrigerator so that you don’t waste water running the tap water to cool it for drinking. Can save 200 to 300 gallons a month.
6. Fill your sink to wash your dishes or your produce at the same time, instead of running water to them. Washing the dishes with an open tap can use up to 20 gallons of water, but filling the sink or a bowl and closing the tap saves 10 of those gallons.
7. If you're taking a shower, don't waste cold water while waiting for hot water to reach the shower head. Catch that water in a container to use on your outside plants or to flush your toilet. Saves 200 to 300 gallons a month.
8. Reuse excess water whenever possible. Instead of pouring old water glasses, boiling pots, or fish tank water down the drain, reuse the water for household plants.

Outdoors

1. Insulate water pipes. Pre-slit foam pipe insulation is cheap and easy to install and you can get hotter water, faster. By getting faster hot water, you’ll cut down on the time you have to run your faucet while waiting for water to heat up.
2. Give your lawn one deep soak instead watering multiple times so that the moisture will go down to the roots and encourage a deep root system in which grass can get more natural moisture from below.
3. Lay down mulch to slow down evaporation. This is an easy way to save literally hundreds of gallons a month.
4. Water strategically. Pay attention to the time of day you water. Water early in the morning and late in the evening so that you’ll lose less water to evaporation.
5. Don’t clean sidewalks and driveways with water. Use a broom instead.
6. Install sprinklers that are the most water-efficient for each use like micro and drip irrigation and soaker hoses.
7. Avoid over-fertilizing your lawn since the application of fertilizers increases the need for water. Apply fertilizers which contain slow-release, water-insoluble forms of nitrogen.
8. Use pistol-grip nozzles on all hoses and always turn off the faucet tightly to prevent leakage. You can also install a water saving nozzle onto a hose to reduce water flow and increase water pressure. These nozzles can cost from $3-6. Avoid sprinklers that produce a fine mist since a lot of water is lost by wind and evaporation.
9. Use a commercial car wash since they can clean your car more efficiently than doing it yourself and look for one that recycles their water. If you do wash your car yourself, park it on the lawn and use biodegradable, phosphate-free soap. You can make your own by combining one cup liquid dishwasher detergent and three-fourths cup powdered laundry detergent with three gallons of water.

Measure your water usage

1. A leaky toilet can waste about 200 gallons of water every day. To check for leaks, you can drop some food coloring into your toilet tank and let it sit about half an hour without flushing. If you see color in the bowl, you have a leak that needs to be repaired.
2. Measure the flow rate of your faucet and showerhead with a calibrated meter bag that is a reusable, low-cost way to measure fixture flow in gallons per minute. This can determine the need to switch to a new efficient showerhead with a flow of 2.0 GPM or less or to install a faucet aerator with a flow of 1.5 GPM or less that can save water, energy, and money. Cost less than $5 for the meter bag.
3. Time the length of your shower. Keeping your shower under 5 minutes can save up to 1000 gallons a month. A simple device can be set to 5 minutes and placed on the shower wall to remind users when it is time to turn the shower off and cost $5-10.
4. Water your lawns only when you absolutely need to. A good rule of thumb is to check it by stepping on your grass-if it springs back when you lift your foot, you can put off watering for a bit more or to be sure you can use a moisture meter that costs around $10. You can also monitor how much water you are using while watering your lawn a meter that screws onto the end of your hose so you can watch how much water in gallons is flowing out.

Other Tips

1. Dispose of hazardous materials properly! One quart of oil can contaminate 250,000 gallons of water, effectively eliminating that much water from our water supply. Contact your city or county for proper waste disposal options. And don't flush prescription medications!
2. Cleaning products can contain large amounts of water - most cleaning solutions have 3-10% active ingredients and the rest is water - along with harsh chemicals that can contaminate water supply and require a lot of extra water to clean out. When buying cleaning products it is good to not only think about how much water you are using, but also what you are letting run down the drain into the water supply.

Want to do more?

1. Install a flapperless toilet. Standard toilets refill the tank after each flush, once a certain water level in the tank is reached, the flapper closes. Flushing then opens the flapper to let the tank water drain into the bowl as the waste water flows out. With the flapperless toilets, water fills a trough at the top of the tank and the flushing action dumps the water from the trough into the bowl so there is no need for a flapper, and no need to fill the entire tank. The flapperless technology is hidden in the water bucket in the tank and using the power of gravity, a touch of the handle topples the bucket, creating a powerful flush that will always clear the bowl. Most come in either a 1.6 GPF which uses 54% less water than a standard 3.5 GPF toilet or a 1.28 GPF which uses 60% less water. These toilets cost between $150-300.
2. Choose energy efficient washing machines. High-efficiency washing machines can conserve large amounts of water. New energy and water conserving front loading models use less than 27 gallons per load and compared with traditional models that use between 27 and 54 gallons of water per load.
3. Install a home greywater system. These systems reclaim greywater from the bathroom sink and recycles it. The greywater is then disinfected and filtered, providing fresh water conservation benefits. These benefits create significant water savings and utility cost reductions. In a two-person bathroom under normal conditions, such as tooth brushing, shaving, makeup, hand washing, etc, one of these systems can save up to 4,000 to 6,000 gallons per year while at the same time reducing an equal amount of waste water discharge as you reuse the greywater once. These systems take a plumber only a couple of hours to install and can cost between $200-300.
4. Install an automatic sensor water faucet. You can save up to 70% of water per hand wash. Infrared adaptors can be simply attached to any existing faucet, and instantly the faucet becomes sensor activated with adjustable temperature and pressure. These can cost $40-60.
5. Collect rainwater from roof gutters with a water-catching barrel that can then be used for your garden, lawn, or cleaning. Rain barrels can hold up to around 60 gallons and cost $150-200.

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