How we use our water.

Submitted by Barbara on Tue, 04/13/2010 - 17:01

We are under 20 gallons per day per person and some months we are as low as 12 gallons per person per day.  Most months we come in around 16 gallons per person per day.  The Riot4Austerity goal is 10 gallons per person per day.  The 16 gallons we use includes some outdoor watering and some for my work as a costumer.  Textiles is a water intensive profession and we grow most of our own produce so we are proud to be as close as we are.  Before joining Riot4Austerity our water usage averaged 25 gallons per person per day.

 

Toilet:  We practice a modified mellow yellow.  We all use the same water in the morning and the evening because everyone goes at about the same time during those periods.  On the weekend & holidays, everyone cleans up after themselves.  This is much easier if you have only 1 toilet in the house which is the case with us.  Its a 1.2 gallon low flow single flush toilet.  You can fiddle with the mechanism to make a toilet use even less than its designed to use whatever that may be.  I clamped down the hose that fills the bowl so now only a very little water heads to the bowl and it didnt effect how the toilet worked. Or you can buy this adjustable gadget for 95 cents.    What ever you do, dont put in a old brick.  Bricks are porous and harbor lots of microbial life and it will be will happily grow in your tank.  Instead try filling up a bottle or jar with water.   Recently we replaced our toilet with a flapperless model
 

Washing Machine:  We have an large capacity horizontal axis washing machine (3.29 Cuft).  My husband and I re-wear many of our clothes.  My husband less so because he has a corporate job and they are just less understanding about these things.  Our sons clothes are normally soiled every day, he is young.  Our washing machines uses 3.6 gallons per cycle and into it we can place about 20 articles of clothing.  Thats less than 1 quart of water per piece of clothing.  Although we might be able to wash more efficiently by hand, I sort of doubt it.

Faucets:  We rarely turn the water on more than half way.  The only thing I use full water for is rinsing the toothpaste out of my tooth brush or filling the bath tub.  Really, thats it.  It drives me nuts when Im in a public place and people use the faucets full blast to wash.  Also training yourself to reach for the cold water is important.  Recently we have turned off the hot water to the bathroom sink.  We hit upon keeping a pot of water in the oven.  The pilot keeps it at about 100 degrees so there is always hot water for washing my face without running the faucet.

Bathing:  My husband bathes daily during the week.  I like to wash my hair twice a week with the occasional bath.  On days I dont shower, I take a bucket bath with the hot water from the oven.  Our son alternates between baths and showers a few per week.  We do keep a bucket in the shower but we are fortunate that our water heater is right under the bathroom so we cannot even fill our small watering can with cold water before the hot water arrives so we mostly fill our watering can at the kitchen sink waiting for the hot water to arrive before doing dishes.  We use the cold water for our house plants.  If the house plants dont need watering, there is always the plants outside or the toilet to flush.  Remember its waiting for you because you are practicing mellow yellow.

Showers:  A good low flow shower head is important.  We have one we really like called the Incredible Head.  It gives a wide spray that feel luxurious and you can turn it off at the nozzle so you can turn off the water while shampooing.  If you want to get away from washing your hair every day you have to retrain your hair.  Your hair will put out oils based on the rate you wash it so if you normally wash it every day, it will get oily very fast.   If you are accustomed to washing your hair every day, dont try going right to every 3 days.  The results will be gross.  

Dish Washing:  We have no water restircter on the kitchen faucet as we have a portable dishwasher.  My philosophy on dish washer is that you dont know how much you can put in it until you have tried over loading it.  Try cramming in more than you think will fit.  More and more until things start coming now uncleaned.  Then you know how much it can handle.  Ours works with dishes heaped on top of each other.  HA!  That cuts down on running the dishwasher.  I believe hand washing is best, but that portable dishwashers are better than built in dishwasher.  Portable dishwasher are great because you can leave the pots and pans in the sink and by the time the dishwasher is done the pans are most of the way to clean.  You can also use the cold water that comes from the faucet to fill the watering can or to wash the cast iron pans.  You have no way to recover the cold water with a built in dishwasher.

If you hand wash dishes, you might want to add a water interrupter pedal.  It allows you to turn the water off with a foot or knee pedal so you dont have to re-adjust the water temp while hand washing dishes.  NEAT!

Leaks:  Its estimated that 1 in 3 homes has a leak.  Check of unknown leaks by looking at you water meter.  There should be a red three pointed star on the face of the meter.  Turn off everything.  If the red star is moving at all, then water is still flowing some where.  First place to check is the toilet.  Check under your sinks and behind the washing machine.  If you cant see anything, you may need a plumber to help you track it down.  Check for leaks by adding a drop of food coloring to the tank.  If it appears in the bowl, you have a leaky flapper.
 

As I said, that 16 gallons per person per day includes some fresh outdoor water used for the veggie beds.  That will go up as the summer gets hotter.  The rain barrels dont provide enough water pressure to work well with a soaker hose and grey water isnt well suited for veggies.  We use the grey water to feed an underground drip system for our lawn and the rain water goes to feed the edibles like the kiwi and boysenberry.