Doing it for Ourselves, 1.2: Water Conservation

When the well is dry, we know the worth of water. 
~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1746

~

There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed. 
~Mohandas K. Gandhi

~

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. 
~Native American Proverb

~

Opie, you haven’t finished your milk.  We can’t put it back in the cow, you know. 
~Aunt Bee Taylor, The Andy Griffith Show

~

Water is the best of all things.  ~Pindar (C. 522-C. 438 B.C.), Olympian Odes

~

Water has no taste, no color, no odor; it cannot be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself. It fills us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.  ~Antoine De Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand, and Stars, 1939

General Water Conservation Information Resources

State Water Conservation Programs and local tips

Encylopedia of water conservation resource links


IN YOUR YARD

*Learn about plants appropriate to your climate zone that require less water
*Install a drip based irrigation system
*Install waterswitch moisture sensors onto your irrigation system that will monitor soil moisture and kick your system on only when necessary.
*Harvest Rainwater
*Reclaim and utilize your household greywater in your yard

Irrigation system tutorial

Low water Plants list

Rainwater Harvesting (pdf)

Rainwater Harvesting site

Rainwater harvest from rooftoop catchment

Rain barrels


Greywater Reclamation

“Any water that has been used in the home, except water from toilets, is called grey water. Dish, shower, sink, and laundry water comprise 50-80% of residential “waste” water. This may be reused for other purposes, especially landscape irrigation.”

Grey water systems for sustainable landscapes

Waterswitch supplier

IN YOUR HOME

*Maintenance
*Leak Detection
*Purchase water efficient fixtures and appliances to reduce water use

House2House  

This website was developed by the California Urban Water Conservation Council under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It provides a room by room guide to steps to take to increase water use efficiency. It’s link page (listed above) is a great online resource.

Fixtures and Appliances: General

EPA Watersense

Watersense Label

WaterSense, a new voluntary public-private partnership program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is making it easy to find and select water-efficient products with a label backed by independent testing and certification. WaterSense will also recognize professional service programs that incorporate water efficiency.

In order to use the label, a company must sign a WaterSense partnership agreement. Among other things, the partnership agreement defines the roles and responsibilities of EPA and the partnering organization, as well as proper use of the label on products, on packaging, and in marketing and other promotional materials. Products that bear the WaterSense label meet all the criteria in EPA’s specifications for water efficiency and performance.

High efficiency toilets

Toilets are by far the main source of water use in the home, accounting for approximately 30 percent of residential indoor water consumption. Toilets also happen to be a major source of wasted water due to leaks and/or inefficiency. WaterSense, a program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is helping consumers identify high-performance, water-efficient toilets that can reduce water use in the home and help preserve the nation’s water resources.

Under federal law, toilets must not exceed 1.6 gallons per flush (gpf). High-efficiency toilets (HETs) go beyond the standard and use less than 1.3 gpf. The WaterSense label will be used on HETs that are certified by independent laboratory testing to meet rigorous criteria for both performance and efficiency. Only HETs that complete the third-party certification process can earn the WaterSense label. link link

Bathroom Sink faucets

Bathroom sink faucets bearing the WaterSense label will use no more than 1.5 gallons per minute (gpm). If every household in America installed a WaterSense labeled faucet aerator or faucet adaptor, it could save more than 60 billion gallons. WaterSense labeled faucet accessories-products that can be easily attached to existing faucets to save water-will also be available in 2008.

link

Showerheads

Showering is one of the top uses of residential water in the United States, representing approximately 17 percent of residential indoor water use-more than 1.2 trillion gallons of water consumed each year. To raise consumer awareness and help improve the water efficiency of showerheads, WaterSense has issued a notification of intent (NOI) (PDF) (5 pp, 46K, About PDF) to develop a specification for high-efficiency showerheads. 
link

Shower start

Clothes Washers

Unlike standard vertical axis washing machines, which immerse clothes in water and scrub them clean by agitation, horizontal axis (h-axis) machines use a tumbling action to clean clothes. Clothes are gently lifted and plunged through the detergent and water.

Saves on water use
Saves on use of detergent/bleach
Saves on energy use
Saves on wear and tear of clothes, making them last longer

Consortium for Energy Efficiency – Residential Clothes Washers 

Horizontal Axis Machines

Qualifying products (pdf)

****************************************************************************

Water is a precious and necessary thing. Use it wisely.

27 comments

Skip to comment form

  1. I’ll check in throughout the day in case there are questions. Meanwhile, I’m heading down to a meetup in a few to see my Congresscritter, to pick her brain and bug her about her votes and her colleagues!

    And I will be asking about water conservation proposals as well as the Iraq supplementals.

  2. for about 10 years now, she has a small city lot and the water that drains off the roof is plenty to keep her yard looking snazzy.

    I’ll be looking into a secondary watering system for my gardens on the new property.  EarthShip homes have some great ways of doing this that I think I could copy.

  3. The water wars in the western US have always been hot…and now it is spreading worldwide.

    GREAT post!

    • Lahdee on September 29, 2007 at 20:01

    keeps water conservation high on my list. I’ve got a desert landscape in the front yard, but I’m looking to green up the back. Previously I hadn’t given greywater a thought, but I’ll be checking it out now. That and the clothes washer.
    Great series CD. Thanks much!

  4. to the extent that i have core, critical issues, water would be at the top of my list.

    very well done, cd. helpful and thorough. reco’d, natch.

  5. That may seem uncivilized to y’all. Pee outside! Find a weed patch in your yard you want to kill and piss all over it, as often as possible. Watch out for neighbors, though. You can also do the old fashioned thing of using a bucket indoors and pour it out later.

    Outhouses are even more civilized for such things if you have the room in your yard and soil you can actually dig into.

  6. I have bookmarked it for later use. I posted two dairies over at dkos about an outdoor bamboo shower project and passive solar water tank we completed at our homestead with videos. We are planning a composting toilet and are interested in other water conservation ideas. Thanks for your research. Here are the links for the bamboo project.
    http://www.dailykos….
    http://www.dailykos….

    • documel on September 30, 2007 at 01:28

    In the 1960s, we saved water by showering with a friend.

    • ybruti on September 30, 2007 at 02:59

    where water has always been scarce, a bath can be quite an event, especially if you have to make a small fire with sticks to heat the water tank and then use just an inch of water.  There’s even a special word to congratulate someone on their bath:  “na-eeman”.  It’s especially appropriate when a sweaty, dirty child becomes a freshly bathed one. 

  7. we are in the process of planting drought-tolerant, native California plants in the backyard, but I didn’t think about gray water.  Some good links in this NY Times article:

    http://tinyurl.com/2

    • sharon on September 30, 2007 at 04:42

    when i lived in hawai’i all our water was from cachement – looked like an above ground swimming pool in the back yard.  i loved how soft the rainwater was in the shower.

    thanks for the rainwater barrel info.  i have a roof garden in nyc and have been wanting to install one for some time. 

  8. The ancient city of Petra, Jordan is carved into rock – a subtractively constructed city of solid masonry with the most brilliant water works system ever.

    Check out this  and her system of water conservation!

    a stonemason’s thrill…

  9. when I was gardening in semi-arid Wyoming, the best system was to a) cover all unplanted ground with weedguard, and b) pile on deep cover of stone.

    This is truly more effective in conservation than a drip system.  Several things happen:  it allows one to saturate a piece of ground without much evaporation at all.  I could put a tomato plant in a clay pot, cover the ground with weedguard, pile rock over it about six inches high, and not have to water it for days on end.  In 90+ degree heat, even.

    Sometimes drip systems are great.  However if you have differing root systems, the greedier, more invasive roots will travel sometimes for several yards to suck the water out of an adjacent drip-system recipient.  This system allowed all the plants to remain well-watered with a minimum of water, without setting more delicate plants up as a water source target for those with more aggressive roots.

Comments have been disabled.