Comments on: What are you doing to conserve water?

By: eLLy

eLLy — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:46:16 +0000

For me personally I am looking into many ways to reduce my water usage including shorter showers and saving rain water, I would also recommend people to check out the following in reducing your hot water bill.

http://factoidz.com/save-money-on-your-hot-water-bill-flush-your-hot-water-tank/

By: Long Dong

Long Dong — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:40:40 +0000

Let’s just go back to the old outhouse days. Saves a lot of water. They could be made modern looking, improved odor control, etc. Maybe Al Gore could sponsor a contest…

By: Julie Reavis

Julie Reavis — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:19:32 +0000

Our family uses a great product that removes used shower water from your shower AS you are showering and pumps it through the wall to your landscaping. It has saved us real money on our water bill and the plants are thriving. A cool feature is the remote (which we have hanging from our towel rack) that turns the pump on and off. It’s so simple that our kids have no problem using it. If you are interested, the company’s website is http://www.MiragePacific.com

By: Adam Conway

Adam Conway — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:25:38 +0000

I have been peeing in the shower for years, probably most of my life, and think it to be the most normal thing on the planet. Before moving to the city (Mendoza, Argentina), I relieved myself under the night sky full of stars and moon every night for years and years. I highly recommend this to anyone that has the room the do it. Beyond that, I am reading Art Ludwig’s “Create an Oasis with Groundwater” and its totally inspiring. I want to convert my residence here in the desert into a grey water paradise!

By: Dai

Dai — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:23:02 +0000

Practice of water conservation is a way of life for our family in North Carolina. This is in no way a representation of usage out there.

- Urinating during shower is common and not out of the ordinary

- Not turning on the faucet at full blast to wash

- Rain barrel to store rain run-off to use for watering plants

- Use low flow shower heads & not shower too long (less than 5 minutes)

- Use reclaimed water for lawn irrigation

By: Peter Dunn

Peter Dunn — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:48:53 +0000

Instead of spending $400 to buy a low-flow toilet, purchase a Tropicana 100% Fruit Juice in the wide neck plastic bottle. The cap seals perfectly, it is lightweight, and it has a square base that sits firmly on the toilet tank. I call this the PoMan’s LoFlo. This is a variation on yellow mellow without the odor. For older men with frequent urge, it spares the dribble on clothes while eliminating up to 10 flushes or 50 gallons of water per day. Of course, you flush it down with the brown. Coffee maker descaler allows the plastic bottle to be reused after it gets cloudy. Rinse it after flushing and top off the toilet with the rinse water to assure a total flush next time. This low flow really works.

By: Marcelo

Marcelo — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:25:49 +0000

We only flush when we go for number 2

When I take showers, I try to make them short, less than 5 minutes. I also capture the water from the shower into a container and then I take the water outside and use it to water the plants.

By: Katy

Katy — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:59:45 +0000

I only purchase water and energy efficient appliances when my old ones wear out. My family takes short showers (most of the time). We use buckets in the shower to catch water which we use to mop and to flush our toilet (and incidentally, we follow the yellow/brown rule unless we’re expecting visitors). When we wait for the water to get warmer or rinse out a glass, we catch that in buckets and use it to supplement the water to the garden. Other garden watering is done only at night. We’ve just moved, and we are transitioning the garden to water-miser native plants and vegetables. We will install a rain barrel or two before the rainy season starts. We also try to take care of our water by avoiding toxic chemicals and detergents (very nearly) all the time. Less toxic stuff goes into the ocean this way.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:01:19 +0000

We keep buckets in the utility sink where our washing machine drains to capture “gray water” and use it for cleaning the patio blocks, “rinsing” the mulched area where our 3 dogs go, bathing the aforesaid dogs, watering the yard and plants, mopping floors and flushing toilets. I re-use the water after a load of clothes to do a load of rags. We follow the yellow/brown axiom as we are on a septic tank. We have a rain barrel for the veggie garden. Gallons and gallons of water conserved by using and re-using at least once!

By: Haans Petruschke

Haans Petruschke — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:56:29 +0000

Because I live in the Great Lakes region which has plenty of fresh water, we don’t need to conserve. That said we recycle virtually 100% of the water we use back to the lakes, (after appropriate treatment of course).

Haans Petruschke
Kirtland, Ohio

By: Caroline in Watsonville, CA

Caroline in Watsonville, CA — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:32:33 +0000

The Little House on the Prairie Solution
Last spring we decided that our kitchen cabinets were due for refinishing. We removed the dishwasher and stored it in the barn while the project was going on. We used a plastic dishpan in the sink to do our dishes and I found that standing in front of the sink and looking out our kitchen window to the garden on that side of our house was a peaceful meditative experience. As sometimes happens, the refinishing project took quite a bit longer than we had originally expected and thus I got used to doing the dishes by hand, and really got to enjoy the whole time I spent washing, looking, enjoying. One day we notice that the sink was draining VERY slowly and finally that it was actually backing up. It turned out that the “snake” we used to unclog the line wasn’t long enough to finish the job. And so I was left with a pan full of dirty dish water. It was at that point that I realized that instead of using a soaker hose to water the artichoke, asparagus & potato plants that I was admiring out the window, I could carry the dish pan a few step out the back door and use the dishwater twice for good effect.
Thus, due to an initially annoying “problem” [sluggish, plugged sewer line] we have found a very satisfying solution. I now use 2 containers on my sink. One is for the wash water, in which I use non-toxic, eco-friendly dish soap. The other is for my rinse water. The total volume is less than 10 gallons. I look forward to doing the dishes even more and to the subsequent visit to my vegetable outside. I enjoy the process of pouring the already used water over the next section of plants and having a short visit to the garden at the same time. I now have a lovely curtain hanging over the empty dishwasher space and behind that I have room for the dish rack when it’s not un use and for the compost bucket that I am filling with the scrapes from our food preparation and which we use to recycle into whichever garden bed is current being used as our active compost pile. I love this solution.

By: Kelly in Austin

Kelly in Austin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:24:42 +0000

I keep empty jugs in the cabinet, and capture the water I run when I need to get the water hot, and use that “waste” to water plants. I’m about to replace my 1.6 gal toilets with dual-stage flush units, but – in the meantime – I don’t flush every time, if it’s just liquid. (Ya know, “if it’s yellow, let it mellow, but if it’s brown, flush it down”).

By: richard heinichen

richard heinichen — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:04:37 +0000

over the 20 years our company has captured over 2 million gallons of water that supply over 300 people their whole domestic water supply. Of course each family has thousands of gallons stored water. The source is Rainwater. It is 4.5 billion years old and is still the gold standard. If a system is sized right there is no need for a well in our area of 32 inches a year. We also have so much water at tank town we bottle it. Still the only bottled rainwater in the world. Tanks. Richard Heinichen, Mayor of Tank Town.

By: larry

larry — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:57:17 +0000

go around the garden perimeter
keeps away all kinds of pests.
doin the sink thing for decades
easier target.
Also keep a 5 gallon pail in the kitchen for dishwater.
Keep a pitcher in the shower for water til it gets warm, use these to flush number two.
Get a new toilet top with basin spout for hand washing- uses fresh water
basin drains into tank

By: Vinny

Vinny — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:55:01 +0000

I try not to flush each time after urinating but only do it at the end of the day. It works ok in our house of two but if everyone flushed only every other (or more)visit to the loo( to urinate) then a lot of water can be conserved.