Conserving Water

[smk0817]

Yesterday our governor here in NC put out a statement urging all citizens to reduce their water consumption by atleast 20%. We are having a MAJOR drought here. I've never seen it so dry and I've lived here all of my life.

My question to you is how do I do this?!? I don't wash clothes until I have a full load. My dishwasher died this week so I'm doing dishes by hand (gasp!) and I'm using dishpans to wash and rinse so that I don't waste water. Forget watering the garden, flowers, etc. They've been dead for a while now. Any other suggestions?

Stephanie

[LexTysMommy]

Sounds like you are doing all you can really do with laundry and dishes...(besides going to laundrymat or using paper products!).
Other sources of water consumption...showers, teethbrushing, toilet flushing, and cooking water.
Limit showers to under 5 minutes, and brush teeth in shower. Save some of shower water to flush toilet? can that be done? Thats all I can really think of without being really gross like "when its brown flush it down and when its yellow let it mellow!

http://www.provwater.com/conscalc.htm

[sdrjeolsen]

1. If I shower in the bathroom with the tub, I plug the drain and then when I'm done, scoop out the water with a bucket and use it for laundry or flushing toilets.

2. If I shower in the MBR, it has no wasy to plug the drain, I use a bucket to catch the water till it warms up, that water also goes into the laundry, although since it is perfectly drinkable, it could be used for many things like washing dishes, etc.

3. take a military shower...turn water on, get wet, turn water off, soap up/shampoo, turn water on and rinse.

4. or, just take a shorter shower.

5.when I wash, I always do a full load and use use the appropriate setting on my machine, but after the initial fill, I turn it down one notch for the rinse, it might save me 5 gallons, but in a week, it basically adds up to one free washing.

6. Wash your car over the lawn, the small amount of soap has never been a problem for us.

7. fix any toilet or sink leaks/drips.

8. Keep a pitcher near the sink, anytime you need warm water, rather than letting the cold water run down the drain till warm, catch it in the pitcher and use it for cooking, pets, etc.

[LexTysMommy]

http://www.owasa.org/pages/yearroundconserv03.asp
couple more tips!

[Odilia]

This will make showering a bit awkward, but put a 5-gallon bucket over the drain/under the shower head. You'll fill it up every time someone showers. Use it to flush the toilet by dumping in 1-2 gallons after someone finishes their business. You may have to put a piece of tape over the toilet handle to help people remember not to flush the usual way.

The shower water can also be used to water plants. You can also dump it in the washing machine at the start of a load. The washing machine will need that much less water for each load.

Depending on how your washing machine is set up, you can take the drain hose and divert it into a bucket (preferably a bucket set in a sink in case of overflow!). This water is good for cleaning, flushing, watering plants.

Have everyone brush teeth "dry." Put the toothpaste on a dry brush, and only use water when finished to rinse out mouth and rinse off toothbrush.

[Siebrie]

If you do have a bathtub with overhead shower: let 1 adult shower, but save the water in the bath. The next adult takes a bath in this water (c'mon, how dirty are you really?), then the children take a bath in this same water. Or, you could all share at the same time.

After this, let the water cool down and use it for toilet flushing, laundry washing, or watering the plants.

If your water is really soapy, you can strain it through one of those big paper coffee filters before watering the plants.

I always think it is important to keep the garden green, because the trees give shade and grass cools you down, so you need less fluids to drink and have less laundry to do (less sweating).

[geckoace]

we installed a low flow showerhead with a military stop for soap thing on it. it cost us $4 and 5 mins to install. you still get the pressure but it is a finer spray so i t uses less water. also you can get faucet aerators at the hardware store that cost about $6 put them on all of your sinks.
if you dont have a low flow toilet put a full gallon bottle of water in the tank you can read more about that online but it displaces the water and causes less to be used.

and of course
limit showers, full loads of laundry

[Judi Dial]

shower/tub water is to save it in the tub and after it cools a bit use it to wet down hand wash clothing. I found that I wasted a lot of water when I hand wash clothes at first because I'm trying to get the clothes wet before I add soap.

To rinse dishes: I got this when I was on the Hopi resevation. They hauled their water about 17 miles at the time. Stack dishes into a pyramid: largest on bottom, glass or small bowl on top. Fill the top dish with hot soapy water. Wipe it out with a dishrag and pour water into the next bigger dish. By the time you get to the bottom, the water’s real dirty, but you’ve rinsed the bulk of the food off the dishes while using a minimum of water.

To wash dishes: Heat a stew pot of water.Heat the water til not quite boiling. Pour off a little into a bowl with dish soap. Use the soapy water and a sponge to wipe off the dishes. Put the dishes aside in a stack. Rinse the dishes in COLD water under the tap. Dip the now rinsed dishes in the hot clean water in the kettle.

If your counters aren’t too sticky, etc. you can stack the soapy dishes in one area at a time. After I get those dishes dipped, I use the soapy water left on the counter to clean the counter. Then I stack the next batch on another piece of counter.

You can wash about a sink full of dishes this way. You’ll have to keep the water in the big pot hot. You also have to not be attached to only using water with soap and clean otherwise.

JD

[PB&J]

Great ideas! Sometimes before dinner I fill the sink with soapy water, then when everyone is done, they just dump their dishes into the sink to soak. I don't do dishes until the kids go to bed so after they soak for a few hours, I don't even have to scrub anything. Just pop them right into the dishwasher.

Also, when I take a shower in the morning, I time myself. I NEVER take longer than an 8 minute shower. The shortest was 3 minutes but they did not include any leg shaving. lol

Sometimes I put the stopper in and catch the water. I use it to water my plants or I will put some Murphy's oil soap in with the water, swish it around and mop the floor. When I'm done mopping, I use the mop to scrub the tub with the soapy water. Works great and saves water.

[Jaded]

Great tips! I'm going to be needing them, because I accidentally left my water on outside, and the hose split at the top and it dripped on the ground for 9 days. My bill will be over $100.

I must admit, I never thought of using wastewater to flush toilets. I'll definitely have to look into that.

I'm looking into ways to catch more rainwater, also, to water plants and to do stuff like mop floors, and possibly flush toilets. Every time I empty something full of rainwater, I think of all that water wasted.

I also saw on the Today show once, that unless you have a really physical job, you don't need to bathe every day. Actually, it dries your skin. The best thing to do is sponge bathe every other day, first wipe off all over, then underarms and other pertinent parts. Add a little detergent to your water and throw the washrag in to soak afterwards. Of course, if you're someone that has to wash their hair every day, keep a gallon jug of water to do that with. I know that this is possible, because I lived in a house once where the pipes froze in the winter, and we always had to keep jugs of water for coffee, teeth brushing and hair washing. We showered before bed, and did the rest in the morning. 3 gallons did it for both of us. That should cut your water usage almost in half.

My normal usage is about 4,000 gallons a month, to the tune of $56 and change. I'm looking to cut that in half, and maybe even less. The less water I use, the less sewer costs I incur. I figure if I'm catching water and using it to flush toilets and other stuff, I'm not turning that water on, and the sewer charges aren't racking up.

[claimsgirl66]

We had a well where I grew up and sometimes in the summer, water level got a bit low, so we had to take quick showers & went to the laundry mat. One tip I found was put the plug in the tub drain when I showered, take a quick shower. Then I would have the water saved in the tub so I could take my time & shave my legs,etc....good luck!