How to save water

I think Earth will never run out of water. It is just that some area's go into drought conditions that can last from months to years as the water shifts somewhere else. The South East is in a drought period now with little rainfall to keep the level of reservoirs and lakes up to acceptable levels thus causing water restrictions. Southern California is also going into a drought. If you live in the Southwest, there is never much rain.

If you live in any of these areas or conditions there are ways to conserve and save water usage. We live in South Florida were we have been on water restrictions for some time. Now that the water use has dropped, the local Water District has lost profits, so they raised the water rates to make back their money. Of course, this has given us more incentive to conserve water use, and to collect rain water for watering our landscape.

I found a plastic Barrel that stands about four feet tall, I don't know how many gallons it holds. I added a plastic hose bib about six inches up from the bottom so we could put a hose on it. The barrel sits up on blocks to get it off the ground. I put it under one of the gutter drops and one good rain fills it up fast. This gives water to use for the plants because we can could only water once a week (now it's twice a week). I have also bought some cheaper quality trash containers to catch water from other areas. With these we remove the lids when it rains and cover afterwards, I will be up-grading these to catch water from hoses that run down from the gutter. You can also find 5 gallon buckets placed around strategic locations to catch water which we transfer to the larger containers.

For every 1,000 square feet of roof area, 600 gallons of water flows off during a 1-inch rain! You could catch a lot of water. There are commercially made containers and cisterns that catch water for drinking or other uses. You can get a diverter to direct the first of the dirtier runoff into one container, then switch it to divert the cleaner runoff to another container for drinking (you still may want to filter it or purify it).

You can run a soaker hose from the barrel to your plants for watering or just fill up handheld containers with rainwater from barrel to water potted plants. There is not much water pressure, just the weight of the water in the barrel. So, the lower the water level the less pressure from the weight.

You have Air conditioning? Put a container under the condensate drain to catch the water. Why not, it would be good to use on your plants.

Another way to conserve and recycle is to use a large plastic bowl in the sink when you wash dishes and use the water collected outside. You can add it to your barrels or just pour it on your plants. Think of how much water goes down the drain.

When you brush your teeth or wash your hands or face over the sink, turn on the water only when you rinse. Use low flow type shower heads and again, turn the water on only to rinse. You can see a big savings from this method.

You can buy toilets that require less water for flushing. Or, like they used to say, but a brick in the tank so less water fills in.

In our home, the water heater is at one end of the home and shower is at the other end. In the summer we use little hot water for the shower because the water can already be warm. In the winter the water is cold so we prefer the hot water. When you turn on the hot water it takes a minute for it to show up at the shower, the first water out is cold. That is alot of wasted water waiting for the hot stuff. We would like to change over to a Tankless Water Heater or Instant Hot Water Heater. The system would be installed at the point of use thus saving some on the water plus there is less electricity being used to constantly keep the water hot.