Water conservation is a worthy New Year’s resolution. Conserving water in your home and yard presents many benefits. Not only will it help your pocketbook, it will also support the environment. Conserving water ensures that the city sewer system doesn’t get overloaded. It also extends the life of your septic system and minimizes pollution.
(Pixabay / offthelefteye)
You can practice water conservation at home with the following steps:
- Check pipes and faucets for leaks – You might take a small drip in your faucet for granted, but it can waste up to gallons of water per day. Bigger leaks could mean hundreds of gallons of water waste. These losses will be reflected in your water bill.
- Don’t use the toilet as a trash can – Every time you throw something in your toilet and flush, about seven gallons of water goes down the drain. That’s a lot of water wasted for a piece of trash. Use wastebaskets whenever possible.
- Check toilets for leaks – Checking for toilet leaks is easy. Simply add a little food coloring to the water tank. If the water in the bowl changes color without your flushing the toilet, it means there is a leak that needs to be fixed. Toilet replacement parts are easy to install.
- Check for hidden leaks using your water meter – Read the water meter of your house before and after a two-hour period, ensuring that no one uses water in the home during that time frame. If the reading does not change, there is probably not a water leak. If the meter goes up, there is likely a leak somewhere that needs to be addressed.
- Install water-saving showerheads – Inexpensive water-saving showerheads are available in your local home improvement store and are easy to install. A low-flow showerhead uses less than 2.5 gallons of water per minute.
- Add a float booster to the toilet tank – An inexpensive float booster may save you more than 10 gallons of water per day. As an alternative, you can take water bottles, put a couple of inches of sand in each, fill them with water, replace the cap, and place them in your toilet tank. Make sure to put the bottles away from the operating mechanism of the toilet. Ensure that the water tank has at least three gallons of water capacity for proper flushing.
Making a few small adjustments at home goes a long way in conserving the limited resource of water.