10 Ways to Promote Water Conservation Around Your Home
Paul Brown Friendswood Water Conservation By Jason Levinsohn.
When it comes to water conservation and energy conservation, both categories go hand in hand with each other. By conserving water, we are in fact conserving energy as well. It takes a lot of energy at the water treatment plants to take the water from the sewer and convert it into drinking water. So by practicing a couple of water conservation techniques in your home, you are effectively conserving energy usage as well. In this article, we will discuss ten techniques you can use around your home to help conserve water.
1. Put a brick or plastic bottle filled with water in your toilet tank. By putting a plastic bottle in your toilet tank, you cut down on the amount of water that goes down the toilet every time you flush. Older toilets can hold up to 5 gallons of water. That’s 5 gallons every time you flush. It is not really necessary to have that much water to flush the toilet. Just make sure you have at least 3 gallons of flush water to ensure the toilet flushes properly.
2. Insulate your water pipes under the sink. It is fairly easy to insulate your water pipes under the sink by wrapping some fiber glass insulation around the white pipes. Be sure to wear gloves and a mask over your nose and mouth when doing this because the fiber glass can get in your skin and lungs, and that can be very bad.
3. Check for water leaks by using the water meter on the side of your home. You can find out if you have any water leaks in your home by making a note of the meter reading when you know no one is using the water in the house for the next two or three hours. Come back and check it after a couple of hours and if the meter has changed then you know there is a leak somewhere.
4. Do not leave the water running while brushing your teeth. The dentist tells us to brush our teeth for 2 minutes. Normally it does not take 2 minutes to get warm water flowing in the sink. Get the water warm and then turn it off when brushing your teeth. Trust me; it will still be warm in 2 minutes.
5. Fill the sink with water when shaving. Instead of rinsing your razor off with running water, fill the sink with some water and shake your razor in the sink to rinse it off. This works just as well as running the razor under running water, and will save you a couple of gallons every day.
6. Use your dish washer when ever possible. It seems kind of hard to believe, but you can save water by running your dish washer instead of washing the dishes by hand. This is also true with your washing machine. I’m not suggesting you wash your clothes by hand, but washing your clothes when you can run a full load only will help conserve water usage.
7. Rinse vegetables in a pan of clean water. Rather than rinsing off your vegetables before your prepare food under running water, fill either a pan or your sink with water and dip your vegetables in the bowl of clean water.
8. Put in water saving shower heads and take shorter showers. Nobody wants to here it, but obviously taking shorter showers will help conserve lots of water. Also, many new shower heads help limit the amount of water needed to effectively rinse off your body in the shower.
9. Check your toilet for leaks. It is very easy to test your toilet for a leak. Simply put some food coloring in the toilet tank and wait about 30 minutes. If you see the water in the toilet bowl changing color, you might have a leak in your toilet.
10. Make sure your kitchen faucets and bathroom faucets have aerators. Aerators do pretty much what it sounds like. It adds air to the flow of water coming from the faucet to help reduce Gallons per minute going through the faucet while retaining the rinsing power of the faucet.