Easy water conservation tips?

Question

Any easy water conservation tips for a single family home? We are doing this for environmental purposes but this will also help financially.

We live in Northern Virginia so its winter now, not sure if I can do less or more.

Thanks in advance to everyone!

Wow...everyone. Thanks! Keep the tips coming! I read every single one!

Answer 1

things you can do right now:
When washing clothes, wash full loads.
The same thing with dishes. whether by hand or in a dishwasher, wash full loads, not a lot of little ones.
don't let the water run when you are brushing your teeth.
Take showers as quickly as possible

(this next one is one that is just too gross for me to do but it does get suggested) don't flush the toilet each time you use it. Or flush the solids each time but save the liquids for once a day. (eeewww, sorry I just can't do that one, but some people have a higher squick factor than I do)

if you don't already have a low flush toilet, change your toilets out to them OR if that isn't possible right now--fill-up a gallon or 1/2 gallon jug with pebbles or aquarium stones and place it in the flush tank. This will displace some of the water that goes into and out of the tank and you won't use so much water when you flush.

Make sure you don't have any leaky faucets and get them repaired ASAP. If you have a toilet that runs constantly get it repaired. Learn how to do minor plumbing repairs yourself to save on the expense.

When the weather warms up. Gradually switch your landscaping over to native plants or similar compatible plants. These plants will be acclimated to the local rainfall and won't need extra watering if you are not in a drought situation.

Answer 2

The easiest way to save water is to take shorter showers. An average showerhead puts out 5 gallons a minute, so taking a 5 minute shower instead of a 10 minute shower will save you 25 gallons. If there are four people in your family, that's 100 gallons a day.

The other thing you can do is fill a container like a milk jug with something heavy, like rocks or concrete, screw on the cap, and put it in your toilet tank. That will save water because less water is needed to fill the tank up, so every time you flush you'll be using less water.

Another easy way to save water is to turn off the water while you're brushing your teeth -- so many people leave the water running while they're brushing their teeth, and that water just goes down the drain!

I hope this helps!

Answer 3

Water that is usable to man is in a natural cycle. Rain- evaporation, and then rain again. Some water is held in "storage" for awhile and is temporarily removed from the natural cycle. Some of this "storage" would be plants, human and animal bodies, and ice. Leaving the tap running or any other conservation methods mentioned above does nothing to conserve water. It only conserve treated water that we are storing in all the pipes that delivers it to your tap.

Answer 4

get a water-saving showerhead

put a brick in the toilet tank. or a water bottle full of rocks; just make sure neither interferes with the flushing mechanism

water your plants/lawn in the early morning/late afternoon

get a water purifier so you don't have to buy water bottles

Answer 5

Don't leave the faucet running when you are brushing your teeth.

Put a brick in your toilet tank.

Shorten showers, and bathe small children together.

Run your dishwasher on shorter cycles.

Answer 6

This is a general answer on water conservation and it include the garden and the fields

PERMACULTURE ANSWER ON WATER HARVESTING AND CONSERVATION

WHY SHOULD WE HARVEST WATER
because there is so little that we can use

------------------------------...
25% of the planets surface is land
75%of the surface is water and it is rising

------------------------------...

97%of the Earths water is salt

fresh water is only 3% of all the Earths water
most of it is beyond out reach

now much ice is melting and running into the seas fresh water lost for ever.

STORAGE or Location of % of the fresh water
ice and glaziers 74%
groundwater 800 meters + 13.5 %
groundwater less than 800meters 11.o%
Lakes 0.3%
soils 0.006%
Atmospheric in circulation 0.0035%
rivers 0.03%


frozen land or permafrost is not included and represent an unavailable storage of 40%

so of the 3% about 11.6 ,is easily available to us ,in rivers, lakes and ground water surface aquifers,more and more of this is becoming contaminated

.

Now climate change and desertification, because of irresponsible agriculture ,overgrazing and deforestation is damaging world fresh water production .

It is a good reason for concern and if we do not rectify matters by changing agricultural methods ,reforest ,stop deforestation,become more economic with water use ,stop producing more people ,stop wasting and contaminating water, we will be in serious trouble all round
and could end up looking like Mars

And these are some of the things we can do
tp conserve water use

EFFICIENT WATER USE

IN THE HOUSE and GARDEN
one can connect the sink straight to the toilet cistern and so use the water twice ,first to have a shave and then to flush the toilet
also if you bend the ball valve you can regulate the level of the cistern

Always have your Grey water and Black water separate,so that the sink and shower water goes directly into the garden saving on irrigation and at the same time ,making the sewage smaller and easier to deal with ,

This also goes and irrigates the garden but via a cistern of two compartments and a French drain ,on which you plant trees,

when it rains ,make your lawn and garden receptive to absorb water ,and not let it run off onto the street.

And cars can be washed with rain water ,it does not have to be drinking water.

The summary for the garden is mulching and lowering the flower beds
having the paths high so that they form basins that absorb the water .

ON THE LAND
Economic systems of irrigation, like drip irrigation
and water harvesting design, using a lot of stone walls ,that condense water in the night
and planting leafy plants ,for the same purpose,

Building wind breaks ,to counter act the drying effects of the wind and farm towards Aggro forrestal ,using as many trees as possible to limit evaporation .
Using shade nets before we have tree cover

and use MULCH

By cutting down the weeds before they produce seeds and leave them where they fall.
They will cover the ground add even more organic matter on top,(you can use saw dust,leaves green or dry),

And when you plant make a little space and plant in the mulch.this is the easiest quickest and by far most beneficial way(for the quality of you soil)to prepare the land for planting.

To prevent weeds from coming all you have to do it turn out the lights,you can even use cardboard or black plastic(this is good for strawberries because they will rot if they touch humid ground,and the bugs can get to them).

Mulch is organic material green or dry that covers the ground,the thicker the better the composting process will turn it in to black topsoil

The humidity is preserved underneath and promotes the development of worms(there exists no better compost than their excrements)and a variety of micro biotic life which together within the mulch produce more topsoil.

The mulch also keeps the ground temperature even and guards against the impact of the rain ,which would other wise brings salt to the surface if on unprotected land.

Mulch also prevents the soil from drying out because of the sun and,wind erosion.

WATER HARVESTING

As far as catching rain is concerned ,we do this all the time ,and have done so already since Babylonian times,and is a part of the more advanced Agriculture,that existed with the Egyptians,,Moors, Arabs and probably many more

Central ,and South American indigenous people had this idea coupled to their pyramids ,catching the water of the slopes and leading it into tanks or onto the fields .

And many others ,today we call this WATER HARVESTING.

Only Modern Man is totally extravagant with the rain water given ,and complains of the wetness ,letting it run off into the rivers lost forever ,With out even attempting to hold on to it .

And then later complains of not having water ,when times are dryer


In Permaculture the rule is to harvest water to the point of Zero runoff.
This means that all of the rain that falls on an area is absorbed by the terrain and not a drop leaves it.

By building dams,ponds or Swales, with inter connecting ditches,
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

If there are enough of these ;the places ,where before ,the rain water ran over the ground into the rivers and on to the sea ,in a matter of minutes or hours
It now runs into absorbent dams or Swales and saturates the ground and eventually reaches subterranean water deposits ,taking many months to do so.

Or it fills up ponds that can be used for Aquaculture.

And so a convex situation that repels water is transformed in a concave ,absorbent one and turning the area in to a sponge.

In Spain and Portugal ,which still display many examples of the conquering Moorish influence one can find many remnants of Water harvesting,such as Aqueducts and tanks underneath the patios ,which collect the rain water from the roofs ,to be used in dryer times.

In Arabia ,on a large scale ,land has been shaped to catch and lead,rain water into sandy areas or to agricultural lands.sand is almost as good as dams because it absorbs water and holds it.

Here in Mexico we collect the rainwater in our school for sustainable agriculture,but it is too near Acapulco to trust the rain water for drinking ,and this holds true for most places ,so we use it for irrigation.
the rain water from a gutter runs via a filter into a tank.
In Europe in my parents house ,when i was young ,we had a rain barrel,where the water from the gutter ended up .
this was usual in those days ,but i have seen few in modern times.

We can use this action also in other ways ,
for example the roof water via a ditch can run trough the chicken house ,cleaning it and end up fertilizing the vegetable plot(this is called the creation of energy flow.

this water used to be Ok in times gone by before Air pollution ,
Today i would recommend it only for washing and irrigation

for more information on Water Harvesting
read The Permaculture designers manual by Bill Mollison,which cost about 40 dollars.
and is the best all round book you can get,on Environmental design,.(tagiari publishing, [e-mail])

Answer 7

Well, you and I could shower together.

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