Water efficiency at my house
Given that I haven’t done anything about water efficiency in our house, even though I made a resolution about it, I thought it was time to come up with a plan of action. I’ve had a look at the usual water-saving websites and come up with a series of things I can do, roughly in order of difficulty.
1. Find out total water use for 2007, so we can tell when we’ve actually made a significant change.
2. Check for leaks and fix them.
3. Check how we use water: this means going down the lists of water-efficiency steps like shorter showers, only running the washing-machine on full, etc and making sure that we actually do them.
4. Get flow aerators or something similar for our taps.
5. Get a shower-head with at least a 3-star water-efficiency rating.
6. Change our toilet to a dual-flush.
7. See if it’s worth upgrading our washing-machine to a more efficient model or not.
8. Make the garden more water-efficient. We already mulch and only water on our scheduled days, but I’d like to look into rainwater tanks, greywater systems and so on.
Tips, recommendations and suggestions are all welcome! Let us all know if you’ve got some good water-saving advice.
Tags: new years resolution
April 17th, 2008 at 11:44 am
We’re having a flo-to-go system installed, just as soon as tax return time arrives - http://www.flotogo.net/
Very reasonably priced, and can get a state govt rebate here in Victoria. I’m very excited about getting it - we’re going to dig up all of the nasty concrete in our courtyard and grow lovely plants with our shower water!
April 17th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Wow, that looks pretty good.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
From hardware stores you can buy a ($20) grey water reuse hose to divert washing machine water to your garden. It fits the washing machine hose that hooks over the sink. I collect the runoff in a watering can and then hand water because my hose doesn’t reach everywhere.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
That’s cool - how long is the hose?
April 18th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Hi Julie,
My first priority after the simple hose from the washing machine was the rainwater tank. I cannot tell you how many times it saved my vege patch over our long hot summer.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Ooh, I’d be interested in any info you get re: grey water reuse. With our current air con system, the water from it just drips down the drain at the side of the house, creating a pool of water whenever its left on for more than an hour or two. Sure, it evaporates quickly in summer but I always feel like its such a waste and I need an easy way to collect this run off water easily.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I don’t suppose you could use one of those collapsible buckets like the ones for showers, could you? or would that not fit into the space? I figure collapsible is good so that the bucket isn’t rolling around your backyard when you’re not using the aircon.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:13 pm
A grey water hose is 10m. I have 2 connected together so it goes through the cavity under my house and ends up in the front garden, the back is just a strip of paving.
My solar water heater drips and I have a bucket under the outlet. It fills 5-10cm a day (1L-ish) and I water the pot plants on my back paving with it.