In-Home Water Saving Tips

You can use less water by making slight, easy lifestyle changes. Simply taking a different approach to bathing and grooming can save water, and fixing plumbing leaks may prevent the loss of thousands of gallons per year. For further conservation, you can replace old appliances that use water with newer, more efficient models.

Prevent Water Waste From Toilets

• Newer toilets use smaller water tanks to conserve water with every flush.

  Modern toilets have smaller tanks than their older predecessors. These tanks typically hold 1.6 gallons of water, and some are designed with two flush modes. One mode will use the entire tank full of water and is meant for flushing solid waste, while the other will use a smaller amount of water to flush liquid waste. If you're remodeling your bathroom, consider replacing your older toilet with a more efficient one. If your toilet never stops filling, you may have a leak or a problem with your float. Locate and repair the malfunctioning part that prevents your toilet from shutting off to reduce the amount of water you waste. If you already have an efficient toilet and it doesn't suffer from any mechanical problems, you can increase the water you save by placing a brick in the water tank to displace some water.

Dripping Faucets

• Much water is wasted by dripping or leaking faucets. A sink faucet that sheds one drop per second, for example, will drip more than 86,000 times in a day. This wastes up to 5 gallons of water per day, or 1,825 gallons per year. A dripping bathtub faucet will use even more water, and more than one dripping faucet in your home can cause significant daily waste. Often, a dripping faucet can be repaired easily and inexpensively by replacing the worn washer within, and you will notice the savings on your next water bill.

Bathing

• A low-flow shower head more than halves your water use.

  You use about 7 gallons of water per minute when you shower with a standard shower fixture. If you switch to a water-saving fixture, your use drops to about 2.5 gallons per minute. You can further reduce your use by shortening your showers. Rather than relaxing under the hot water, get in, bathe and get out quickly. Taking baths also uses significant amounts of water. It takes 28 to 36 gallons to fill your bathtub, or 14 to 18 gallons for half a tub of water. You can save more water by taking a shallow bath than you can by showering for 10 minutes, but the deeper your bath, the more wasteful your bathing becomes.

Shaving and Brushing Your Teeth

• Turn off the water while you brush your teeth to conserve water.

  If you leave the tap running while you brush your teeth, you use 1 to 2 gallons of water where only a small amount would suffice. Shaving with the tap on can waste 10 to 15 gallons of water. Fill the sink with a small amount of water when you shave, and rinse your razor in the standing water of your sink. When brushing your teeth, turn the water off after you wet your brush, and don't use it again until it's time to rinse.

Using Water in the Kitchen

• Wash and rinse dishes with standing water rather than running tap water.

  Washing dishes by hand with the tap on uses up to 20 gallons of water per load, but you can significantly reduce that amount by turning off the tap and rinsing the dishes in standing tap water instead. If you use a dishwasher, do not rinse your dishes before loading them. Instead, scrape any remaining food off of them. Most modern dishwashers can thoroughly clean dishes that have been scraped instead of rinsed.

  A dishwasher uses 9 to 12 gallons of water per load, but you can replace your old dishwasher with a smaller, more efficient counter-top dishwasher. If you don't have the option of replacing your dishwasher, use it only when you have a full load to increase the number of clean dishes your 9 to 12 gallons of water produces. If your dishwasher has a light water setting or a short cycle setting, use this to further increase your water savings.