Water Conservation
Summer is approaching and California could be expecting yet another dry summer. With this past winter being one of the driest we have had in some time, we should definitely take a look at some ways we can conserve water. In today’s world we turn on a faucet and water comes out; and we don’t really think about how much water we consume until we see the utility bill (AHHH!) or there is a major drought. In those cases we try to cut back on water but we are not always successful, so in this article we are going to talk about how you personally can save water by being more conscious and how you can even receive a rebate for switching over to more green products such as your washing machine, water heater and many other appliances in your home that could even save you monthly on your utility bills.
Method Number 1: Is Your Faucet Running?
The first way to save water is the method that your school teachers and magazines have been telling us about since we were young; not leaving the faucet running while brushing our teeth. There is a lot of truth to this method, when your bathroom sink is running it flows at a pace of roughly 2 gallons per minute.
- Leaving the faucet on for 2 minutes of teeth brushing twice a day will cause you to lose around 1,500 gallons of water annually
- A family of 4 would lose around 6,000 Gallons of water every year.
So…if not running the faucet while we brush our teeth is one of the most popular ways to save water, what are some other ways we can save water?
Method Number 2: Boosting Your Toilets Efficiency.
Our toilets don’t use that much water right?
Actually they can.
- Older toilets could use up to 7 gallons per flush.
- Newer toilets use as little as 1.6 gallons
Needless to say if you are able to replace your old toilet with a high efficiency or “Low Flow” toilet you should. This new toilet would save you 12,775 gallons of water annually.
Though of course it is not in the cards for everyone to just go and replace their toilet, so we had found this quick and easy water saving hack that displaces water so you can use less water per flush.
How to save water when flushing:
Supplies
- Water Bottle (we used a 64 ounce bottle)
- Sand or something heavy to weigh it down.
- Water
Once you have all of your supplies, place the sand or heavy objects inside of the water bottle, fill the 2 liter bottle with water and secure the lid.
Place the large bottle of water inside of the toilet tank away from the moving parts of the lavatory and vwoala.
You are now saving water
This displaces the existing water, so less water is needed to fill the tank. This could save a family of 4 around 3,000 gallons of water a year. Test this option out and make sure it works for your type of toilet and for your home.
Method Number 3: Be Mindful While Watering
Finally another good tip for saving water is by hand watering and xeriscaping. By hand watering and not using sprinklers you can direct your stream of water on to the plants. By doing this you are able to use less water because your stream is pointed directly on your plant and nothing is getting unnecessarily watered.
Also by having a garden that is xeriscaped will greatly reduce the amount of water needed to keep the plants alive. Xeriscaping is a style of landscape design that uses little or no water. You can look at ways to begin to xeriscape your yard here; this article goes through all the basics you need to know about getting your yard more water friendly. Here is a website with a list of drought resistant plants.
These are some of our favorite hardy plants
- Yucca
- Lavender
- Daylilies
Method Number 4: Water Saving Appliances
One of the final things you can do to save water in your home is to get water friendly appliances for your home. Nearly all of the most popular brands have energy star rated (Energy star approved products are more energy efficient but don’t necessarily save water) products such as:
These newer high efficiency water heaters will definitely save you tons of water considering that the old washing machines use between 30 and 45 gallons to do a single load of laundry, a new high efficiency clothes washer will use somewhere between 15 and 30 gallons and the super high efficiency washing machine will use less than 5 gallons of water. These washing machines generally run between $600 and $1,600 and will generally pay for themselves in water and energy savings after 6.5 years. Yes, that may seem like a long time but the average washing machine will last around 10-14 years so once it has paid for itself it could save you the cost of your next washing machine!
Method Number 5: Recirculation Pumps
Recirculation pumps provide a constant flow of hot water, they make it so that hot water is always circulating through your home so the wait for hot water is cut nearly in half, saving you about 10,000 gallons of water a year! Wouldn’t that be nice!
So there we have it, a list of ways to save you water this year! We hope that this helps. If you suspect that a leaking water heater is costing you extra money this year, give us a call at 1-866-946-7842 and we will be happy to come out and take a look at your water heater. While we are at it, ask us about our recirculation pumps! We hope that this post helps and please ask us questions about our recirculation pumps, we are happy to help!