How to Conserve Water in Your Home

Estimates on the amount of water consumed per capita vary widely depending on the source of your data. According to the Handbook of Water Use and Conservation by Amy Vickers, the average daily usage of water is 69.3 gallons for each person. This is the water usage in a single family home and does not represent water usage on the job or water used by municipal factors. When all of these are considered, estimates can go as high as 200 gallons or more produced each day for each person. Since you have little or no control over water usage outside your home, we will be using the 69.3 gallon estimate.

In order to control or conserve your water usage you must first know where you are currently using water and at what rate. The largest use of water in a domestic setting is the toilet. Each person will use 18.5 gallons of water per day flushing the toilet. This accounts for 26.7 percent of all water usage. Coming in second place is your clothes washer using 15 gallons of water per day, or 21.7 percent of the total. Showers and baths are next using 12.8 gallons. Faucets are the last of the double digit users coming in at 10.9 gallons daily.

What will be surprising to many homeowners is the average amount of water wasted each day due to leaks or dripping faucets. It is estimated the average home has leaks which use 9.5 gallons of water daily. This represents 13.7 percentage of your total daily usage. It is critical all leaks and dripping faucets be repaired as quickly as possible in order to reduce this number. If you are only able to address 50% of the leaks you can reduce your water usage by almost 7 percent. This is a significant amount and requires no sacrifice or changes to your lifestyle.

Some methods of conserving water are simple. Wash only full loads of dishes or clothes. Do not leave the water running when hand washing dishes, and take shorter showers. Other conservation methods require physical modifications to your home. Most of use cannot afford to replace perfectly good appliances simply to reduce water usage. However, when these appliances require replacement, we should consider water conserving replacements.

A water conserving shower head can reduce daily usage by 3 gallons per person. Purchasing a clothes washer with a water saver setting can reduce daily usage by 5 gallons. A huge change can be made by installing water conserving toilets which can reduce water usage by as much as 10.3 gallons.

By making these changes you will have reduced the individual water usage from 69.3 gallons down to 51 gallons. If you have fixed 50 percent of your leaks, this is reduced down to just over 46 gallons of water per day. That is a reduction of almost 35 percent, which is very significant by anyone's standard. Common sense and paying attention to details can help you conserve water, and lower your monthly bills at the same time.