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Water Conservation Tips for the Home

Educating children and adults on using simple measures to conserve water can save families hundreds of dollars a year and prevent thousands of gallons of water from being wasted.

In every room in the house and around the yard we can make many small changes in our daily habits that will prevent extensive waste of water.

Let's start in the bathroom:

• Change to a water-conserving toilet that uses a capacity of 1.6 gallons of water with each flush. This will save $95.00 a year as well as hundreds of gallons of water.
• Take showers that last only five minutes and use flow restricting shower heads to save several precious gallons a day.
• When brushing or flossing your teeth, don't let the faucet run, several gallons of water goes down the drain in just a few minutes.
• Another water saving tip is to fill the vanity basin with water while shaving or washing up.
• Identify leaks in the toilet and repair them. Putting some food coloring in the toilet tank, if you notice some in the bowl you have a leak. A leaky toilet can waste up to 600 gallons of water a month.

Here are a few tips for conserving water in the kitchen:

• Store water for drinking in the refrigerator; don't wait for the water to get cold by leaving the faucet running.
• Fill a container with water and use it to rinse and clean produce. Don't dump that container down the drain when you're finished rinsing your produce. Use it to water houseplants instead.
• Designate a cup or glass to use for drinking water for the entire day.

In the laundry room follow these pointers:

• Always fill the washer to the limit with dirty clothes.
• Select the appropriate water level for the items to be cleaned.
• Use "Energy Star" made washers and save 50% on water usage.

And outside the home:

• Use a timer on your sprinkler system.
• Water larger areas of the lawn with wide coverage sprinklers.
• Water smaller shaded areas by hand.
• Use a restricted nozzle at the end of the garden hose.
• Fix any leaky spigots right away.
• Wash your vehicle from a bucket or better yet go to a car wash that uses recycled water.
• Use "Xeriscaping" when planning a garden. This technique uses plants that require little watering and are drought resistant.

Water conservation can be incorporated into our daily lives without much effort. Making sure our children's schools and adult education centers teach conservation as a part of their curriculum is an important step in preventing water waste.

Water Conservation Facts

• The Earth's surface is comprised of approximately 80% water, but only 0.6% is available for personal use and consumption.
• Fix those leaky faucets. One drip per second means more than 2,000 gallons of water down the drain each year!
• In the US, approximately 380 billion gallons of water are used each day.
• Every restaurant beverage refill in a new glass requires two glasses of water for washing and rinsing.
• In our homes, 75% of water use is in the bathroom (40% down the toilet), 15% in the kitchen, 10% in the laundry room.