The Water War - Part I

As I mentioned a while back I'm currently updating some items in my house to see how much money I can save on my water bill. My average bill use to be about $50/month. Last month my bill came in at $43.48, so what changed? Nothing but my attitude and a few minor habits.

I basically just became aware of when I was using water in the day and trying to reduce that amount. So when brushing my teeth I fill up my rinse cup with 1/3 full of water and that's all I use to brush my teeth. I also stopped running the water while washing my hands. I just fill the sink with a bit of water and then proceed to wash my hands and then let the water out. I'm down to perhaps two cups of water to wash my hands now. Then when washing the dishes I start with a small amount in the sink and during rinsing of objects I end up with a larger volume at the end to wash the big dirty pots and pans. I'm also letting my grass grow longer so it needs less frequent watering over the summer. That's all I changed during that time.

I've also picked up a few new things just this last weekend so I will get to see the results on the next bill. I bought a few sink aerators to reduce the flow at my taps from 2.2 gal per minute to 1.7 gal per minute. These things are a good deal. I spend about $4 on the item and install it in two minutes with no tools. For the one tap I've put in I estimated it will save me $0.47/month just on my water bill. That doesn't include the natural gas savings for using less hot water. So I will have a pay back period of around 8 months.

Another project I'm starting in the next week or two is making some rain barrels. I've picked up two 98L-garbage cans, which I'm going to convert over to rain barrels. I still need to pick up a few items to finish the project, but I'm hoping to be able to do it for about $50 for two barrels. I'll let you know the final cost and how to build your own once I'm done.