Please share your sneaky hints for saving water

xbrenx

deanos wrote: »

When it rains have a shower in the garden

:j:rotfl::j:rotfl::T

Oldernotwiser

Don't flush for a pee!

smileybetty

Get a shower timer so that no one spends too long in there

Herbyme

smileybetty, that sounds like a good idea, my son hates showers then won't get out when he finally has one ;-)

If 1 cubic metre of water, costing £1.40, is 1000 litres, ie i could save 1 m cub if i flush 1000 times with a 1 litre water saver in the cistern, can I really expect to save much that way?

And how could i work out how much each appliance uses - dishwasher, washing machine shower etc?

Edit - tested my shower this morning, used 25 litres of water a minute, that sounds massive - is it?

u109230

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Don't flush for a pee!

"If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down!"

I know a mate (living on his own) who flushes his loo with water from a water butt near his back door. He fills a watering can & pours it into the loo bowl.

I've thought of doing that, but my water butt is 30 yards down the garden & I've also got a wife & 2 kids who'd never agree to using a watering can flush!!

u109230

carolinerunner wrote: »

smileybetty, that sounds like a good idea, my son hates showers then won't get out when he finally has one ;-)

If 1 cubic metre of water, costing £1.40, is 1000 litres, ie i could save 1 m cub if i flush 1000 times with a 1 litre water saver in the cistern, can I really expect to save much that way?

And how could i work out how much each appliance uses - dishwasher, washing machine shower etc?

Edit - tested my shower this morning, used 25 litres of water a minute, that sounds massive - is it?

That sounds cheap compared to where I live (Anglian). Adding my metered supply, sewerage & standing charge costs together, 1m3 of water costs me about £3.75.

booter

elfen wrote: »

Get a thing (hippo?) to put in the cistern so the loo doesn't fill so much.
Use washing up water to water plants

Don't buy a hippo - put a brick (or some other heavy object) in the cistern - this does the same job i.e. displaces the water so the cistern doesn't take as much water to fill and therefore uses less to flush). May mean some trial and error to ensure proper flush (since it'll be flushed for big jobs only!)

Robert2009

Here in sunny Scotland (peeing down just now) we don't have water meters and I am charged over £400 a year for water and sewage and whatever.

So I don't have to bother with all that water saving.

I don't need to water the garden either.

Altarf

u109230 wrote: »

That sounds cheap compared to where I live (Anglian). Adding my metered supply, sewerage & standing charge costs together, 1m3 of water costs me about £3.75.

If you want to know the price for each water company in the UK, have a look at this document, on pages 30 for metered water and 34 for metered sewage.
http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/regulating/reporting/rpt_tar_2010-11completetables.pdf

There is a large difference in price, for example the prices for water vary between 59 p/m3 and 167.95 p/m3, and for sewage the prices vary between 53.55 p/m3 and 267.15 p/m3.

The table on page 32 gives example annual prices, for 60m3, 110m3 and 160m3 for water for each area, and page 34 for sewage.

So for a 110m3 consumption if you lived in the Thames area you would pay £258.10 per year, £153.41 for water and 104.69 for sewage.

But on the same 110m3 consumption, if you lived in the South West you would pay over twice the price at £538.25, £216.91 for water and £321.34 for sewage.

Kate__5

• I've fitted a Nordic Shower head to my electric shower which uses less water
• I put a small paddling pool into the bath to wash my son, rather than bath him in the big bath
• Use a cup when washing teeth
• Got a free space saving device for the loo from my local water company (Dee Valley and United Utility both do this, not checked others, so worth looking at your local companies website).
• Using a normal dishwasher uses 80 litres, an eco dishwasher uses 55 litres and washing by hand uses 6 litres. Depends on how many dishes you can wash in the sink before needing to replace the water. Wash the cleanest stuff first.
• I use the office gym in the mornings before work and shower there, so I only shower at my house at the weekend (!).
• I use 2 water butts in the garden for the plants and the car. Not that either of them have needed it this year!
• I've just bought a new eco washing machine that uses less water and electric because I wash cloth nappies.
• Keep a jug old cold water in the fridge so that you don't have to run your tap to wait for the cold water to come through.
• Only fill the kettle with the water that you need - this saves electricity too.
• Always use a full load in the washing machine.
• When you do wash the car, use a sponge and a bucket, rather than a hosepipe. Or if using the water butt, try a watering can and sponge.
• Plant plants in your garden that don't need as much water.
• Reset your lawnmower blades to a higher setting. This encourages thicker growth and traps the morning dew under the blades of grass, meaning less evaporation and less watering needed. It also helps with weeds apparently!

Cost of getting rid of sewage waste is an awful lot more expensive than the cost clean water that comes into your house and the toilet accounts for a third of the water used in a typical house. So doing the math, the 'if it's yellow let it mellow' principle is probably the biggest saver, combined with some sort of water saving device in the cistern - whether that's a brick or a freebie gadget from your local water company. Or recycle a plastic bottle by filling it with water chucking that in.