Brilliant Water Saving Tips & Advice

While we take water for granted, in many parts of the world clean, running water is non existent or in extremely limited and difficult supply yet many of us, with a virtually unlimited supply, waste it - knowingly or unknowingly.

Droughts are cause for concern in some parts because of the low level of water supply. Water and water conservation is absolutely necessary to our survival, and with growing populations it’s straining our infrastructure and water resources to the limits. Costs for providing water to our homes and industry will escalate but so will the need to look for new resources. We can minimize those costs to ourselves (and ultimately to our environment) by carrying out a few simple water saving methods in our homes. Here are a few tips: Indoors:

1. Take shorter showers AND get a low flow showerhead. They are inexpensive to buy but get one that uses less than 2.5 gallons per minute. You won’t notice the difference in your showing enjoyment, but you will if you have low water pressure - you’ll in fact get a better shower with a low flow showerhead. Some models have a great idea! They allow you to control the flow while you suds up, then increase the water again for rinsing.

2. Turn the water off while brushing your teeth or shaving. You’ll be surprised just how much water can be wasted this way. Teach your children the same good practices.

3. Avoid flushing toilets unnecessarily. Don’t put anything except toilet waste into the toilet. Dead spiders, hair balls, cosmetic pads and other trash belong in the garbage can, not the toilet. Unfortunately toilets are responsible for a huge part of household water usage (30-40%). Which leads to the next tip …

4. Replace older toilets. The new water efficient dual flush systems available now save a huge amount of water compared to toilets 10 years old or older: The current standard full flush for solid waste is 1.6 gallons per flush - the half flush for liquid waste is .8 gallons per flush … compare this to 3.5 to 7 gallons per flush!

5. Attach aerators on all the faucets in your home. They allow air to be mixed in with the water so less water comes through the taps.

6. To adjust water temperature, turn down one tap instead of turning up the other because it uses less water and achieves the same result.

7. Collect the water that comes from hot taps While waiting for the hot water to reach you. It normally goes down the drain, but can be used for watering plants and cleaning. In areas of extreme water shortage pop a bucket in the shower to collect shower water and this can also be used on the garden.

8. Keep a jug/bottle of water in the fridge for drinking. This will save waiting for water to run cool and, if you’re on municipal water, it will reduce the chlorine content as it sits in the fridge.

9. Run washer or dishwasher when you have full loads OR adjust the water level for smaller loads. Front-load washers use about a third less water than top-loading (and less washing powder). Most also have an automatic load-to-water adjustment, and some have a suds-saver option that drains wash water into your laundry tub to be reused for another load.

10. Instead of using water with a kitchen sink disposal unit, start a compost pile in the yard with vegetable and fruit waste.

Outdoors:

1. Check for leaking taps and pipes. If you have a water meter, do a test to satisfy yourself you don’t have leaks. Read your meter then leave for a two-hour period when no water is being used. If the reading is exactly the same you can be assured you’re OK. If not you have a leak somewhere on your property that needs to be fixed.

2. Find leaks and fix. Check first for dripping faucets and replace washers where necessary. Even if taps are turned off hard, they can still drip and this is a sure sign washers are going bad. It sounds amazing but a drip rate of one drop per second wastes 1,000 liters per month (about 3,000 US gallons per year). Toilets can also leak. It’s easy to check this by putting a few drops of food coloring in the tank. The color will appears in the bowl after about half an hour if you have a leak. So replace worn parts - they’re cheap and the repairs are easily done.

3. Mulch your garden. Mulch is a layer of material spread on top of the soil to conserve moisture, discourage the growth of weeds and even out soil temperature - it can keep up to 70% more water in the soil. Beware of using green lawn clippings - they can pack down quite hard and become a barrier stopping water getting to the plants. Better to put them into the compost pile and let them break down.

4. Water less often but more deeply, and aerate the lawn with a fork for more efficient lawn care. Use drought tolerant grass.

5. Add wetting agents to your garden, lawns and tub plants to keep water (and nutrients) in the soil. Kitty litter can also be used to hold water in the soil but it does tend to stick together in lumps, so mix it in with the soil.

6. Seek information on plants that are not water hungry. Also group together plants that have the same water requirements.

7. Try to water as late or as early as possible to reduce evaporation from your garden, and using a trigger nozzle on the hose will save water.

8. Raise the lawn mower blade to at least three inches. A lawn cut higher encourages grass roots to grow deeper, shades the root system and holds soil moisture. If we practice our own water conservation methods at home we encourage our children to accept that our natural resources are in limited supply - something they’ll have to come to terms with in the future. And something our present generation too often chooses to ignore.

If you don t live in Southern England, chances are that you might not have noticed the water shortage problem in the UK, but you might have heard of the hosepipe ban and were left puzzled by London s Mayor Ken Livingstone plea to Londoners to stop flushing the lavatory after relieving themselves! Two unusually dry winters have left the reservoirs only about half full in Southern England. In the Thames water region, around London, there has been less than 70% of the rainfall that was expected since November 2004.

The British are probably unaware that Londoners use an average of 165 litres of water every day, higher than the national average of 150 litres and about one-third higher than other European cities.

These must be depressing figures for any British household, but you don t have to panic yet! By educating yourself about conserving water in simple ways, you can breathe easy and perhaps even use a hose or sprinkler to water your garden after all!

In this article, we ll debate the big question does it takes less water to take a shower or have a bath?

First of all, let s take a look at a few facts:

# A full bathtub holds approximately 140 litres of water

# Standard shower heads dispense 20-60 litres of water per minute

# Shower heads with flow restrictors dispense 10-15 litres of water per minute

An average bath requires 100 to 200 litres of water. Depending on your showerhead and whether it has a flow restrictor in it and how long you shower, the answer could oscillate either towards shower or bath. The average shower of four minutes with an old showerhead uses 80 litres of water. With a low-flow showerhead, only 40 litres of water is used.

If your house was constructed before 1992, chances are your showerheads force out about 20 litres of water per minute. Multiply this by the number of minutes you are in the shower and the litres add up fast!

If you d like to test the amount of water wasted yourself, here s an experiment you could try at home. Put the plug in the bathtub next time you take a shower (but not a stand-alone shower as you might spill over the lower shower wall). After you’ve showered, examine how much the tub filled up. If there is less water than you would usually have in a bath, then you will probably save money by taking a shower instead of a bath.

Although the chances of the contrary happening are unheard of, if it is the case for you, then in addition to the enjoyment you get in a bath, there is more good news for you.

A good, long soak in a bath can renew the spirit. Hydrotherapy, which loosely translated means rejuvenation by water, enables bathers to revitalize themselves. Some modern systems even contain air jets that have been strategically placed to target the body s pressure points, relieving tension and stress. Bathers can also enjoy the benefit of chromatherapy, which uses coloured light in much the same way aromatherapy uses scent to stimulate different psychological and physical responses.

Bath time for a young family can be an important playtime and social occasion to be shared with other family members. A number of people find baths a calming way to relax in today’s fast paced stressful life. Herbs and essential oils soothe aching muscles, tense nerves, and skin irritations; soften the skin; and ensure a good complexion.

The Environment Agency, however, would recommend short showers, not baths. Based on its latest research, it proclaims that a 5-minute shower uses about a third of the water of a bath and can save 50 litres every time.

The time taken to take a shower is not the sole variable though. As previously mentioned, water consumed is also dependent on the type of shower you use. Power showers can use more water than a bath in less than 5 minutes! Low-flow showerheads deliver 10 litres of water or less per minute and are relatively inexpensive. Older showerheads use 20 to 30 litres of water per minute.

If you still believe that a shower cannot equal the gratification of a bath, then it is recommended to partially fill your bath in order to use less water. That option might seem better if you consider the plight of sailors aboard ships. Due to lack of fresh water aboard ships, sailors were taught to get wet, turn off the water, soap and scrub, and then briefly turn the water on to rinse. Let s hope British residents don t suffer the same fate in a few years.

Here in Australia, we are in the middle of the worst drought for a very long time. Farmers are walking off their land, which has become unsustainable, and in the cities there are severe water restrictions. We cannot use any garden sprinklers, cannot wash the car or hose down our driveways. We can only use our garden hoses between the hours of dusk and darkness, and even then only with a proper spray attachment on the end of the hose.

On a global scale, the issues of global warming and climate change have become newsworthy, and other nations are facing the possibility of life without an unlimited supply of fresh water.

Because of this, many people are advocating waste water recycling, the use of the waste water discharge from household appliances such as toilets, washing machines and dishwashers. While it may seem a sensible thing to do on the face of it, further analysis should show up the folly of this method of water conservation.

Logic tells us that “what goes in must come out”, and grey water which comes directly from the waste pipes of the various outlets must contain bits of soap, shampoo, washing powder and every other kind of detergent. Every piece of your dirty underwear contains traces of feces and urine, which of course will be transferred from the underwear to the water in your washing machine. If you don’t use disposable diapers, the same logic will apply, but much more so, and the used water will be that much more contaminated.

If you feel that you must use this water because you hate to see it go down the drain, use it on your lawn, and not on edible vegetables or fruit. Even on lawns, the water should be spread over a wide area, but unfortunately the flexible pipes which are available for fitting to your washing machine drainpipe only have a small outlet, and will concentrate the used water over a narrow area, unless you take the time and trouble to stand there and move the end of the pipe around as the water comes out.

There are three main dangers in the use of wastewater for irrigation purposes, namely salt, sodium and microbes, with the biggest danger coming from the microbes. The salt and sodium will eventually turn your soil into a highly saline environment, and not many plants will grow in that, but that’s only a minor concern when compared with the very real danger of bugs and bacteria.

We have already seen that underwear and diapers contain lots of bugs and microbes, and once they are released into a garden situation they will thrive and reproduce rapidly. While you may think that this will not matter with a lawn, you have to think of your pets and children with bare feet walking over it, and picking up these bugs, eventually reintroducing them back into the house.

The only proper solution to the conservation of water is to put your wastewater down the drain where it belongs, and if your local authority does not have a recycling or desalination plant, to install a rainwater tank, which even in a drought should eventually fill up, unless you are living in a desert or outback environment.