Water Saving Tips
We’ve lived in our house 20 years and it seems like when one thing goes they all go. This past summer our toilet sprang a leak. Luckily my husband’s a plumber and fixed that. Then one of our sinks started dripping. Not wanting to waste the water I stuck a pitcher under the faucet and figured I’d use it to water some of my mammoth plants. By time they were all watered the leak was fixed. My husband decided to check and change out other plumbing. He showed me some little bitty part that looked like a rubber button, the other parts were just ordinary washers. It didn’t look too involved but then again I wasn’t doing it.
I was rummaging through various environmental sites and I ran across earthtrends.wri.org. They usually have scientific data, but by popular demand also compiled a list of ways for an invidual to conserve water, waste, energy, and biodiversity. It seems I did the right thing with the water, catching it to reuse elsewhere. I was amazed at just how much water is lost by a dripping faucet though. I know I’ve heard some outrageous amount before but when it’s in your face again and we’ve heard that in the not too distant future millions of people will be facing water shortages, it has a different impact. One drip per second wastes 20 gallons per day. In an emergency it is estimated that 1 gallon per person per day will make do. That’s 20 days of water I would need to sustain myself, and 10 days for a couple of people, all lost in one day by a dripping faucet. So get out there and do a little maintenance and get that leaky faucet fixed. There are plenty of people who can help you change a washer in your faucet which is usually the culprit. You don’t want to find yourself without water someday wishing that water back you let flow down the drain.
The rest of the list had some surprising little tricks. Like “Check your toilet for leaks. Put 10 drops of food coloring in your toilet tank. If the color begins to appear in the bowl after 20 minutes without flushing, you have a leak that could be costing you 200 gallons per day. Repair parts are cheap and easy to install.” That’s what it said, 200 gallons! It reminded me of filling a pool, which is another thing. For those of you who don’t want to mess with the seasonal maintenance of your pool, that just drain the thing every year–yes folks, there are people that do this–well don’t do that anymore. It doesn’t take much if you have a really good filter to get the water in crystal clear condition. You wanted it, take care of it.
It went on to say don’t leave the faucet running while brushing your teeth and for the men, don’t do that while shaving either. And the next idea I didn’t know about either, but then again I have low flow toilets. It said to “put a plastic bottle in your toilet tank. If you do not own a low flow toilet, fill a plastic bottle with water or sand and place it in the tank of your toilet where it will not interfere with the operating mechanisms. This will decrease the amount of water used with each flush.”
The rest were common sense like don’t run the washer unless it’s a full load. Hey no problem at my house. Same thing with the dishwasher. Again no problem at my house. I honestly pride myself on being able to cram my dishwasher full with absolutely no space for an extra spoon. They say a dishwasher uses less water than doing them by hand because we all have the bad habit of leaving the water running when we do them by hand. Ladies if you don’t have a dishwasher, this is a good environmental excuse to get one so you can learn the fine art of cramming the thing to its fullest capacity knowing you can just push a button and walk away. Besides there is seldom that accumulation of dishes in the sink because you’ve got a new hiding place for them.
With summer coming up, it’s good to know that using a bucket of water to clean your car versus the hose could save 100 gallons of water. I think the quarter carwash comes in handy here. You know we’re all alike when it comes to seeing how fast we can do an entire car for a dollar. But I’ve done the bucket of water in the driveway too. It works well when you have a giant sponge. The same conservation goes for the lawn. If it springs under your feet, it doesn’t need watering. That’s where the grass mixture called Northern Turf from Garden’s Alive comes in handy, deep roots, less watering. I’d rather save it for my garden. No more wasting water there either. I just bought a nifty little fountain that should cover my garden all at once, no overshooting anywhere, and soak it quickly. Soft soaking water saves on runoff. I’m seriously considering the water barrel drip system. Our old neighbor watered a huge garden this way.
It looks like that’s all I might have this year is a vegetable garden, raspberries, and grapes because of this weather. I don’t know about anyone else but my pear tree, cherry tree, and some ornamentals had buds. It’s been awfully cold and I’m like everyone else, hoping mother nature has a fix for dropping buds if this keeps up, like a new set popping out later on. I got really disgusted today and cut all my daffodils and hyacinths and brought them in to admire. It’s better than leaving them outside to freeze. Nothing else bloomed yet, so I’m still in luck hoping mother nature comes through. Unfortunately, I think we’ve overtaxed mother nature these days. We expect too much. We’ve fed her garbage and expect roses in return.