How To Save Water In Your Home

There’s no doubt that saving water is the perfect union of saving money and going green. Water is one of the few things we absolutely can’t live without, and we waste an awful lot of it in this country.

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the average American household now uses over 100 gallons of water every day. They also quote a recent government survey that found 36 states anticipating widespread drought and water shortages by 2013. This means that we need to get in the habit of conserving water right now, because every drop really does count.

Learning how to save water also helps the environment be reducing pollution. Here are just a few of the benefits the EPA lists:

• When households save water, few treatment facilities will fail because of overloaded systems.
• Many lawns are over-irrigated. This means that much of the fertilizer that’s used ends up in local wetlands due to runoff, harming fish and local wildlife.
• If households used less water then there would be fewer wastewater treatment facilities built.
• Many communities use local lakes and streams for their water supply. When you use less water, it means the lakes and streams get to keep more.
• Your wastewater treatment facility uses enormous amounts of energy to clean the water that leaves your home. The EPA estimates that treatment facilities use enough energy nationwide to power over 5 million homes every year.
• Most people don’t realize that saving water is really just like saving energy. The EPA says that letting your faucet run for five minutes uses the same amount of energy as leaving an incandescent bulb burning for 14 hours.

So, you’re now convinced that saving water can really help save the environment. Awesome. But, how do you get started? Is it going to cost a fortune?

The great news about saving water in your home is that most of the fixes have to do with your lifestyle, which means they don’t cost a thing. I’ll list some that are free, some that are cheap, and some that require more of an investment.

Tip 1: Fix Your Leaky Faucets

We’ve probably all heard this tip before, but it bears repeating! If you have a leak that is emitting one drop per second, you’re wasting over 3,000 gallons of water per year. If your toilet is leaking, you’re wasting 200 gallons every day. That gets pretty expensive.

Here are two tips to tell if you have leaks in your water system.

For general leaks, go look at your water meter. Note where it is right now, and then don’t use a drop for two hours. If you go back and look at your meter and the numbers have changed, this means you have a leak.

To test your toilet, put a drop of food coloring in the tank and wait half an hour. If the color shows up in the bowl without you flushing it, your toilet has a leak that needs to be fixed.

Tip 2: Take Showers

It takes 70 gallons to fill up your bathtub. A five minute shower uses 10-25 gallons, depending on if you have a low-flow shower head or not. If you go low flow, you’ll obviously save a lot of water, since most of us take showers every day.

The least expensive low-flow shower head that I have found is sold by Real Goods.

This shower head is only $12, and will reduce your water consumption by 50%-70%, according to their website. It also has a cool “pause” button, which will allow you to stop the water flow while you’re lathering your hair or shaving.

Sidenote: I do not have any affiliation with Real Goods, and do not receive any commission or payments for recommending their products. I have not used this particular showerhead, but reviewers on other sites were happy with its performance.

Tip 3: Save Water By Retiring Your Garbage Disposal

Many people don’t think about the fact that when they put food into the garbage disposal, that’s more “waste” that must be cleaned out of it at the wastewater treatment facility.

Now, to be fair, a lot of this is sifted out in the “grit process”, when the water goes through a cleansing bed of sand to remove the larger particles. And a lot of the smaller matter is eaten by the micro-organisms that treatment facilities use during later steps of the cleansing process.

But, food particles still find their way into our local lakes and streams. This can disturb the natural pH balance of the water, and also contribute to oxygen-sucking algae blooms in extreme circumstances.

Scientists seem to go back and forth over which method is “worse” for the environment: throwing your food away, or putting it down the disposal. Australia’s Center for Water and Waste Technology conducted a study and found that disposals impacted the environment three times more than simply throwing your food in the garbage. This method also uses much more water because garbage disposals must have plenty of water to run correctly, and then even more water is used in the cleansing process.

By far, the most environmentally-friendly way to handle food waste is to compost. I’ll be covering this in detail in a later post, but if you’d like to find out more about home composting click here.

Tip 4: Conserve Water When Hand-Washing

When hand-washing dishes, many people let the water run while they scrub one dish at a time. I know, because I used to do this myself (until I calculated that using the dishwasher was actually more environmentally-friendly than hand washing my dishes).

If you wash your dishes by hand, you can easily save water by using a dish pan or stopping your sink. Simply fill the dish pan with soapy water and wash from that. Rinse dishes under a light-flowing stream of cold water after they’ve been scrubbed.

Tip 5: Use A Rain Barrel To Save Water

The EPA estimates that the average family uses 30% of their household water on their lawns. That’s a lot of water for green grass, especially when so much free water falls from the sky. All we have to do is harvest it.

I generally don’t water my grass, but I do have extensive flower beds that need a lot of water. I always felt really guilty using water from the hose to keep them alive; not only is my water expensive because I’m on a city line, but it’s just wasteful.

This summer, though, I took matters into my own hands and built a rain barrel. And, I can’t even tell you how much I love it.

I built my own for around $37. The plastic barrel is food-grade quality, and I bought it straight from the factory that makes them for $27. All I had to buy after that was the flexible downspout attachments, which cost less than $10.

I haven’t yet taken the step of elevating it and installing a spigot; that’s on my to-do list for next year. To get water out all I do is lift up the white lid, and dip in my watering can.

Building your own rain barrel is really easy to do, and you can learn how to do it here.

Store-bought rain barrels can be pricey. You’ll find them online from $100-$200 or more. Yes, you save time and legwork buying them pre-made, but you pay a premium for it.

The only real challenge I had when building my own was finding a warehouse that made the barrels. You’ll definitely want to spend the time to find a local source. These barrels are huge, and shipping would quickly erase your savings by building your own.

Another tip you can use when watering your lawn is to place a empty tuna can on your grass. When the can is full, your grass has had a good soaking and the water should be turned off. Most lawns are over-watered, so this is a good rule of them to follow when watering your grass in the summer months.

Tip 6: Install A Low-Flow Toilet

If your toilet is from 1992 or earlier, the EPA says it’s probably using 3.5 gallons of water per flush.

Today’s toilets use half that amount. And if you upgrade to a dual-flush toilet, you can save even more.

Dual-flush toilets are really cool. If you just need to flush a little waste down the drain, it uses .8 gallons. If you’ve got a heftier amount of waste that needs to go down, it uses 1.6 gallons.

And, as you can see with this dual-flush model from Kohler, they don’t look any different than regular toilets.

Prices run the gamut, from $110-$425 or more. This Kohler model shown comes in around $316.

So, is it worth the investment?

Well, the EPA thinks so. They estimate that installing a WaterSense toilet (WaterSense is like the Energy Star program, only for water efficiency) will save the average family over 2,000 gallons per year, and rack up $90 in annual savings.

If you need to upgrade your toilet, then look for one with the WaterSense label. They’re slightly more expensive than regular toilets, but you’ll definitely earn back your investment, and help the environment to boot.

So, those are six of my tips. What do you do to save water in your home? Please send in your handy tips; I’d love to include them!

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