As the summer months approach, conserving water is especially important. During the summer months, homeowners often use two to four times as much water as they use the rest of the year. After the summer of 2012, over 65% of the country was in drought. Though water use is unavoidable, there are easy things you can do in your everyday life to use water more efficiently.
- Dishwasher: make sure you load your dishwasher completely before running it, and don’t pre-rinse dishes. Tests have shown that pre-rinsing doesn’t actually improve dishwasher cleaning, and you can save as much as 20 gallons of water per load.
- Shower vs. bath: A full bathtub requires, on average, about 70 gallons of water. However, taking a five minute shower only uses between 10 and 25 gallons. Additionally, you can install a water-saving low-flow shower head that can limit water usage to 2.5 gallons per minute.
- Laundry: Since the average washing machine uses 40.9 gallons of water per load, make sure you wait until you have a full load of laundry before running the machine.
- Lawn: Only water your lawn during the early parts of the day, and avoid watering when it’s windy. This will help you to avoid losing water from evaporation.
- Check for leaks: One drip ever second adds up to five gallons per day! Make sure you check your faucets and showerheads for leaks.
Do have more ideas on how to conserve water? Comment below, we would love to hear!
Written by: Lauren Henry, class of 2014
Photo credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophobic_effect, A droplet of water forms a spherical shape, minimizing contact with the hydrophobic leaf.
