Saving Water - Tips

squeaky · 30 April 2005 at 4:00PM

More and more people these days have a water meter fitted so I thought a post about being thrifty with regard to water usage might be helpful.

This is not intended to be a thread discussing "should I or shouldn't I?" or sources or suppliers - just water saving Old Style.

Hardly anyone on the planet has failed to hear the one about putting a brick in your loo tank - but here it is again just in case

*

A shower typically uses about a quarter of the water needed for a bath - so if you switch to showers for clean and save baths for luxury and pampering you'll be doing well.

You can, if you're really pushed, do the submariners trick while showering. Get yourself wet then turn the shower off or very low, lather up, then turn the shower back up to rinse off. No lingering!

The same thing applies for washing hands at the sink - never under a fast running tap.

Bathwater can be scooped up for the garden. If your shower is in the bath you can put the plug in. I use my dust-pan which is soft edged and doesn't mark the bath to scoop almost all the water. Trying to save water in a shower tray is tricky and you try it at your own risk

Dishwashers can be used to good effect if well filled - compare about 50 Ltrs of water usage against how much water you'd use in the sink - or better yet a washing bowl - plus rinsing the same amount of pots and pans and crockery etc.

Washing loads should be full. Not absolutely crammed to the gills but comfortably full. (It's actually worse for a washing machine to be underloaded than overloaded.)

Get dripping taps sorted straight away! They might be slow but the water loss twenty four hours a day seven days a week is huge. If you don't believe me put a measuring jug under a tap you've let drip on purpose and see how long it takes to fill up! Then do the sums to see how much per day. Don't forget to use the water in the jug wisely.

Once a week, make sure all your taps are off and not dripping (or turn your stop tap off) and check that your water meter has completely stopped. Completely. If it's showing movement you might have a water leak in the supply pipe which needs fixing. Straight away - if you're sure all your taps are off properly.

Most veggie cooking water can be used as the base liquid for many stocks and soups.

You can even use potato water to make bread with - this excellent tip is in the very first post of the breadmaking thread.

* Edit: Not advisable in dual flush loos. Sorry - I should have said that. Thanks to Fastflys for pointing out this omission.

So that's a start, now it's your turn

Ticklemouse · 30 April 2005 at 4:08PM

Don't forget the good old fashioned rain butt in the garden - connected to a downspout and so lots of lovely rainwater for the plants.

squeaky · 30 April 2005 at 4:10PM

Indeed!

Blimey Ticklemouse but you were quick! I haven't finished error checking it yet!!!

Ticklemouse · 30 April 2005 at 4:15PM

:dance:

Right, off to put a brick in my loo

culpepper · 30 April 2005 at 4:50PM

When you boil the kettle put what you dont use in a flask.
Then you are saving water and power.
Its very useful when one person wants a cuppa or when I want hot water for cooking veggies.
We only wash up once a day so only use one sinkful of water so that must help a bit.

Queenie · 30 April 2005 at 5:16PM

I use a 3-tier steamer rather than a couple of pans on the hob - saves water and power. The water in the bottom of the steamer is reused for a) gravy b) stock or c) watering the plants (house and outside).

Teeth brushing: water in a beaker is used rather than a running tap (can't get on with dry brushing)

Laundry: any water used for pre soaking items gets poured into the machine (via the drawer - but needs to be slowly!) when the items are put into a wash load.

Fish tank water is great for the garden!

If you belong to a gym/swimming pool - don't bother showering before you leave home - use their showers

their timed so you get to use the "submariners" technique (cute! Like that expression, thanks Squeaky).

Hair washing: Do you *really* need to wash, shampoo, rinse and REPEAT!! Try going w/out the "repeat"

Fastflys · 30 April 2005 at 5:51PM

Just a word of caution:

Quite a number of toilet cisterns on sale and fitted in properties over the last 10 years at least, are already the reduced water per flush variety. If you then add
“A Brick” for example there is a good possibility that the water flushed will be insufficient to move the poop and paper through your drainage system correctly.

If you then reduce waste water further by for example recycling bath water etc.
you will greatly increase the risk of a blockage and subsequent back up of your drainage system. This could take several months before it becomes apparent.
Drains rely on a reasonable throughput of water to keep them free of debris.

It happened to me twice!! Both times I managed to clear the blockage myself.
Not a nice job.

I now allow more water to escape down the drain and have not had a blockage since.

Consider the cost of water, it’s still a cheap commodity so any saving made [although welcome] will not be great. The cost of professionally unblocking drainage will swallow [pun intended] up any saving made several times over.

Is it worth the risk? That’s up to you to decide.

amarillo_2004 · 30 April 2005 at 7:59PM

Is it worth it though? I've had a meter since moving into this house, but no bills yet. I'm hoping simply living alone will mmean the cost goes down, but am not making special efforts to use less yet.

How much does ny nightly bath cost me? How do I work that out?

Wickedkitten · 30 April 2005 at 8:07PM

it would be a good idea to first see how much everyone pays a month and then look at what they use water for on average.

Here £25 a month

both me and my partner have showers every day. Me in the morning ,him in the afternoon once he gets back from work (he cycles. Wash dishes twice a day (1 sink, without bowl because I found when he washed the dishes and used the bowl, he would actually just leave the water running the entire time to rinse whereas I tend to wash, turn on water to rinse, and then turn off) and about 2 loads of washing a week. Oh and refilling the water filter jug about twice a day from which mostly all the water for the kettle and boiling veg comes from.

That being said I do like having a relaxing bath on Fridays.

squeaky · 30 April 2005 at 8:10PM

Fastflys wrote:

Drains rely on a reasonable throughput of water to keep them free of debris.

It happened to me twice!! Both times I managed to clear the blockage myself.
Not a nice job.

I now allow more water to escape down the drain and have not had a blockage since.

Mine have been fine for three years now. I'm assuming that my washing machine principally helps here, as does my dishwasher. And there are also times when I have a bowl of cleaning water that's no good for the garden and that goes down the loo (poured as quickly as possible) in preference to the sink.

Edit: Actually, not all of my bath water gets diverted to the garden by any means. I have no place to store it because my rain barrel gets topped up often enough, and in winter the garden is quite wet.

It's summer time I use the bathwater, and again - not if it has rained very recently.

Since I tend to put the plug in the bath by force of habit when taking a shower this means that although there's less water it still gets let loose in a rush. So my drains still get sluiced out.

tootles_2 · 30 April 2005 at 9:29PM

We had a water meter fitted last year and it has cut our bill in half, two of us in the house. Shower each morning, washing up water used to water plants of its not too greasy. Wash hair twice a week, one lot of shampoo only....washing up tip..... run very hot water in the sink and put pots in to soak as you use them, by the time you come to wash up, the water will be cool and most of the gunk will have soaked off the plates. Always plan your washing up, glasses first then plates, knives and forks finishing up with pots and pans. When I use the oven on Sunday I put a squirt of washing up liquid into the empty roasting pan and fill up with very hot water, by the time you have finished your meal, the grease and any bits stuck to the tin will have floated off, use a green pad to scour the rest and then rinse in the water after you have finished washing up everything else.

Washing machine is used at night to save electricity and always a full load, possibly two a week. We have a dual flush loo, do not use a brick as it would not flush correctly if we did, we only flush the loo evry second time we go if its for a pee, any longer than this and you will get a build up of film on the water, not nice. Shower water collected in the bath and then used to rinse off the bath when we have finished. Only boil enough water in the kettle for what we need, water from steamed veggies used for gravy or soup. I also save cold tea and use it to water my containers, dilute half tea and half water, fuschias love it, but do not use it on anything that does not like acid, i.e. camellias or azaela's.

Thats all I can think of now, we are really pleased with the meter and will not be having it taken out when the 12 months is up.

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Saving Water - Tips

Comments

Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

🚀 Getting Started

Categories

Is this how you want to be seen?

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free