Why You Need to Reduce Water Consumption at Home
Everyone consumes water daily and some people are more wasteful in this area than others. Conserving water helps you to reduce your monthly water bill and your impact on the environment. You may think that reducing water use means a drastic change in your lifestyle, however, there are some easy ways to reduce water consumption at home.
1. Reuse Water
You might already turn off the water faucet when brushing your teeth, but there are situations where you still run water down the drain. For example, you turn on the shower and let the water run while you wait for the temperature to warm up. You may also run water down the drain while rinsing fruits and veggies.
Capture this water in a container and use it to water your houseplants, to hydrate your outdoor garden, or to use in other essential ways. You could save many gallons of water daily by doing so.
2. Upgrade Your Fixtures
Personal water consumption is directly related to the type of plumbing fixtures in your home. For example, low-flow faucets are uniquely designed to increase water pressure through aeration rather than by dumping more water out of the faucet and down the drain.
Low-flow faucets and showerheads save a significant amount of water. While making these upgrades at home, consider replacing your current toilets with water-efficient toilets for even more water savings.
3. Run Full Loads
You may be in the habit of running your dishwasher at a specific time of day regardless of how full it is. For example, you may run the dishwasher every night after dinner even if there is still space in the appliance for your breakfast dishes.
When you run the dishwasher and washing machine when they are half full, you are wasting water. If you don’t have a dishwasher, plug up the sink and fill it with hot soapy water to wash dishes instead of letting the faucet run the whole time.
4. Take Your Car to a Car Wash
One benefit of taking your car to a car wash is that your own home’s water won’t be used. Even more importantly, commercial car washes use water more efficiently than washing the car by hand since they have the infrastructure to recycle grey water.
When you do your part to reduce water consumption at home, it will add up over the years and can result in hundreds of dollars of savings. Each of these tips is easy to follow and simply requires you to make a few minor changes in how you use water.
Peconic Home Inspections provides water testing and other home inspection services to Suffolk County and Long Island. Contact us to schedule an appointment.