How to Save Water And Cut Your Bills

When you save water, you save money, but you’re also helping to conserve one of the planet’s most valuable resources. Learning how to save water is simple, and it’s one of the easiest ways to save money. It just takes a little discipline to stop turning on the faucet and just letting the water run.

When you aren’t careful about water use, pretty soon hundreds of gallons of water have gone down the drain along with your money. And did you know that when you save water, you can also save on sewer charges which are often based on how much water you’ve used?

Generally speaking, the amount of water used every day by a family of four can vary. For bathing or showering needs, that takes up about 80 gallons. Taking showers accounts for as much as 30% of the total water usage in an average home.

For washing laundry our family of four uses about half of that, or 40 gallons. For dishwashing they’ll use about 15 gallons, cooking and drinking purposes use another 12 gallons, and the biggest surprise is that four people can flush more than 100 gallons of water a day through toilet use. There are also many times that water leaks are responsible for water loss. Along with any miscellaneous usage, the total water use comes to about 250 gallon a day or up to 7,500 gallons per month. That’s money flowing right down the drain, literally! So, what are the best ways to save water? Here are a few to get started.

1. Turn off the tap! Many people just let the water run at the sink while they reach into the fridge, lather up their hands, brush teeth. Get in the habit of shutting off the faucet when it’s not needed.

2. Make sure your toilet doesn’t leak. You’ll hear or see dripping. To save water, the easiest way is to put a brick or small jug filled with water into the tank to displace water and thereby use less for each flush. You could consider replacing it with a low-flow model.

3. Cut your shower time to ten minutes or less. Running long hot showers is a major cause of water expense. Let yourself indulge infreuqntly, but for other times make it fast! You can also use a low-flow showerhead. When you wash, get wet then turn off the water to soapy up. Turn the water back on to rinse. If you’re taking a bath, the tub doesn’t have to be full. Stop shaving in the shower too – that’s better done at the sink!

4. When you shave or brush your teeth, shut iff the faucet. Letting water run while brushing for two minutes wastes up to four gallons of water.

5. Only run full loads of wash to save water and electricity. If you must run a short load, reduce the settings to the smallest possible load size. Remember that the permanent press cycle uses 1/3 more water than a regular cycle, so use accordingly.

That should get you started saving water – Stay tuned for more ways to save water in a future post!