How to Save Water in Your Bathroom
A great place to start conserving is the room in which you likely use the most water – the bathroom. Between showers, hand washing and toilet flushing, this room is rarely occupied when the water isn’t running.
Luckily, there are tricks to start saving water with each of the three main fixtures in your bathroom: the shower, the sink and the toilet.
Saving in the shower
Some people prefer baths while others prefer showers. Depending on how long you take to bathe, you could save water by switching methods. The average tub can hold 42 gallons of water, and most people use about 30 gallons for their baths, according to the Sacramento Bee. On the other hand, the typical shower expels about 2.5 gallons of water per minute. If you take a 10-minute shower, you’ll be using less water than the typical bath-taker. If you like to take a longer time, a bath might use less. However, the best way to ensure you’re using as little water as possible would be to take short showers.
Reducing sink use
Your bathroom sink is used for many things, like washing your hands, brushing your teeth and shaving. While all of these things are important for personal hygiene, there are things you can do to cut down on the amount of water you use. You could fill the sink with a small amount of water when shaving to clear the razor without having to run the faucet every few minutes. Or you can also turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth or washing your hands. If you have little ones, teach your children the importance of turning off the faucet completely before walking away.
Conserving with your toilet
Your toilet uses a lot of water. Older toilets might use between 3.5 and 7 gallons of water with every flush. Newer ones, especially those designed to be more environmentally friendly, may use as little as 1.6 gallons per flush, but some still use quite a bit more.
To save water when flushing the toilet, you can raise the level of water in the tank. Fill a plastic soda bottle with sand and put it in the tank. This will cause the water to run for less time after the flush. However, if you already have a model that only uses 1.6 gallons of water to flush, you may impede proper toilet functions. Be sure to find out before adding the sand.
Saving water in your home is important, but it’s not always easy to know where to start. Conserving water in your bathroom isn’t hard, and is a great place to begin, considering how much water use goes on in it. If something goes awry in the bathroom though, be sure to call a professional plumber for help.
