Aside from conserving water (which, in Texas, can be a very important thing because while the drought earlier this decade is over, water shortages “still plague some parts of the state”), improving your home’s water usage will save you money.
So we’ve put together a short list of eight tips to help you improve your home’s water usage. You can start implementing these suggestions today!
Use the toilet only for what it’s made for: flushing away human waste.
Many people think nothing of flicking a cigarette in a bowl and flushing. Ditto for facial tissue or a small piece of trash. But every flush of a toilet uses about 3.5 gallons; that’s a lot of water to use just to throw something away. Use a proper trash receptacle instead.
Check your water meter for undetected leaks.
It’s easy to do. Simply go out and check your meter’s reading, make sure no one turns on a faucet, a spigot, the bath or shower, or uses the toilet for at least an hour (two is best). Go back and check the meter. If it’s moved, you have a leak somewhere.
Check your toilet bowl for leaks with food coloring.
Simply place some food coloring in your toilet’s tank, wait 30 minutes and then check the bowl. If you see food coloring in the bowl, the toilet has a leak. Fixing the leak can save you considerably. One family we know went from paying $33 a month in its water bill to just $ 13 a month by fixing one toilet leak. (The leak had been wasting water for a year, to the tune of the family paying an unnecessary extra $240 to the water utility.)
Insulate your water pipes so that shower and bath water will warm faster.
The faster the water heats up, the quicker you’ll jump in the tub or shower, thus saving water.
Speaking of showers, take shorter ones.
A 10-minute shower with a conventional showerhead uses up about 5 gallons a minute, so a 10-minute shower uses up 50 gallons. A four-minute shower (get wet, lather up, turn the water off scrub/shampoo, turn on the water to rinse off) would then use up just 20 gallons of water.
Even better would be to install low-flow showerheads, which can cut water flow down by half. Taking a four-minute shower then would use up only 10 gallons of waste).
Wet your toothbrush and then turn the water off.
You only need the water to wet the brush; you don’t need running water as you brush your teeth. Turn the water back on when you’re ready to rinse.
Rinse your razor blade in the sink, not the faucet.
Fill the sink with a few inches of warm water and rinse your razor in it. Doing so rinses the razor just as well as running water does, but saves a lot of water.
Water your lawn only when it’s thirsty.
You can tell if your grass needs water by walking on it. If it doesn’t spring right back up after being trod upon, it needs a drink. By the way, most lawns only need about 1-inch of water a week. You also can try letting the grass grow to about three inches in height, as doing so helps its soil retain water.
If you find that you have an unknown leak somewhere in our plumbing system wasting water —and your money – contact the expert plumbers at Plumbing Dynamics for help. We can come out and find that leak!
Give us a call at 214-929-3431 or send us a message via our online contact us form.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
