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There are a number of very straight-forward things we can all do to save water in the home, and also a range of more involved options for those who would like to take water conservation a little further.
The easy things:
- Avoid leaving the tap running when cleaning your teeth or shaving.
- Reduce the flow of water for washing your hands or consider installing a tap miser or similar flow reducing device.
- Wash vegetables and fruit etc in a bowl rather than under a running tap.
- Make sure you are only using the amount of water you need when filling saucepans and kettles - this one will save energy too!
- Keep a jug of cold water in the fridge for drinking to save running the tap until the water is cold, and if you do need to run the tap to get cold water have a container to hand and use the warmish water in the garden.
- Always try to wait until your dishwasher is full before running it (half-load programmes use proportionately more water). Most A rated dishwashers are also very water efficient, using around 15 litres of water for a full cycle so they are likely to use less water than doing the dishes by hand. (See our information page on dishwashers).
- Try having a shower instead of a bath - 5 minutes in a gravity fed shower will use about 65% less water than a bath, but power showers are a different matter - they will use more water than a bath in less than 5 minutes!
A slightly more sensitive but very pratical piece of advice that will also save significant amounts of water over a year relates to our toilet flushing practices. The simple ditty goes " If it's brown flush it down, if it's yellow let it mellow".
The slightly more involved:
- Make sure you change washer in any leaking taps - a dripping tap can waste about 4 litres of water a day, and if it's a hot tap will also waste energy.
- Lag external water pipes - burst pipes can waste huge amounts of water very quickly and cause lots of damage. See our information page on lagging pipes.
- If you have traditional style cisterns install a specialist water saving device to reduce the flush volume - some can use nearly 10 litres and an average family of 4 can use as much as 2 baths full of water every day just flushing the toilets. A DIY alternative is simply to put a brick in the bottom of the cistern, but make sure the wall fixings can take the extra weight. Also make sure the flush volume is still sufficient to clear all the waste! Please note - this is not suitable for slimline or dual flush systems.
The more complicated (and costly):
- Install a greywater collection system. Greywater is the waste water from baths, showers and washbasins and can be collected and with minimal treatment (usually basic disinfectant or microbiological treatment) and re-used for flushing toilets or in the garden. In a typical household the amount of greywater generated will be roughly the same as required to flush the toilets. In some circumstances greywater can be used for watering the garden and basic systems can be as simple as siphoning the bath water after use.
- Install a rainwater harvesting system. Rainwater harvesting systems offer the potential to harvest natural rainwater to use for flushing toilets, washing machines r for use in the garden, although some more ambitious DIY-ers may be able to rig up a water butt to supply the cistern for a downstairs loo. As always; check what's involved first.
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