This is a bit of an ambitious post to embark on at this time of the night but it’s been in my mind pretty much all day so I should lay it bare before it goes away again.
There are many steps one can take to make improvements to their homes to optimise the resources available to us, in particular, those coming from nature. So here’s a few jumbled thoughts on what improvements could be done, assuming budget wasn’t an issue. Let’s start this series with:
Water:
Water is one of those things that are so easily wasted as we’ve been taking it for granted ever since it’s been running clean off our taps. But it’s not always been this way, and in many parts of the world, water is a scarce resource that communities learn to use sparingly. It should also be remembered that it takes a lot of energy for this clean water to flow through our taps. We (I) tend to forget how much treatment and purification it undergoes so we can drink it and wash ourselves with it.
So how exactly do we use water and how could we substitute it?
1. Drinking. There’s not much compromise there, drinking water must be clean in order to be safe. However, how often have you filled a glass, drank half of it and poured it down the sink? I’ve done it far too often because we don’t see the value of this liquid in our glass.
Solution: Instead of pouring water straight into a glass, use a pitcher and pour only what you need. If you still have too much, pour the leftover water in a houseplant. They’ll be thankful for it, of they would if plants could do such things.
Plea: Avoid water bottles as much as possible. They involve quite often a costly manufacturing process and don’t even always taste very nice. If the water in your area is too alkaline to drink straight from the tap, use a jug with a filter and save yourself lots of money by stopping to buy all those bottles… please!
2. Washing. When it comes to keeping ourselves clean, I can think of 3 ways we do that:
- Shower
- Bath
- Wet cloth washing
Solution b. tends to be our idea of comfort but it normally uses an average of about 150 litres of water just for a good soak-in. Personally, I don’t find baths relaxing at all, the water cools too quickly and thanks to Archimedes, I can never find myself relaxed enough to let go, not to mention that the tub’s usually too small. So when you just need to wash, have a shower instead. I know you’ve probably heard that one ad-nauseum but based on some experiments I’ve done recently, I would say a typical “quick” shower probably uses more like 35 or 40 litres of water. That’s a lot of water saved just for a quick wash (and it can be just as relaxing).
Solution c. would actually count as the most efficient, if a little antiquated. Fill your wash basin with hot water and just clean yourself with a damp cloth. It’s annoying if you’re not used to it and makes a mess in the bathroom but it sure beats how much water one uses (about 3 or 4 litres should be enough, if that)
With that comes the question of what to do with used water. The experiment I’ve been running lately consists of catching waste shower water (just water…) in a bucket to be used to water my garden. The bucket’s only 10 litres but that’s at least 10 litres less I’ll have to draw off the tap to water my tomatoes when they need it.
A more costly but more rewarding solution would be to fit a system to collect bath/shower water as it drains down the pipes for similar purposes (tomatoes are really thirsty fruits you know…).
3. Dishes / Clothes Washing
You don’t need perfectly clean water to do your dishes or your laundry, which is why these are a good way to use up rain water. Rain water normally gets collected down the gutter and onto the sewer systems to be returned to the adventures of the water cycle. However with a simple rain-collection system that involves a tank of sorts, rain water can be used when the water doesn’t need to be perfectly filtered thus saving tons of energy that is required to bring clean water into a building. And when you live in the UK, rain water isn’t exactly the sort of thing we’re short of.
4. Washing your car
This deserves a separate section because I know far too many people who just hose down their car with that nice clean water that comes down their taps just to make their fume-spewing vehicle all shiny. Well if you really insist of cleaning the car, you can just use a bucket of soapy water and a sponge. That’s what I do when I can be bothered cleaning the car, mostly because I don’t have any easy access to a hose but also because it’s much easier to scrub those old stains from the birds redecorating. Just think how much worse it gets in terms of consumption when people use high-pressure hose.
5. Watering the plants
So you don’t have plants? Jump straight to the next section, otherwise, well I’ve been suggesting it all along but waste water from glasses of water (unless you expect an alien invasion), shower and bath water are perfectly fine to give your plants a drink. Maybe just make sure there isn’t a too high soap concentration 😉
Another option is to get a water butt to collect your rain water. If you live in a house, it’s easy enough to install, providing you have space next to your pipes. If you live in an area where it doesn’t rain enough to regularly water the garden, it’ll provide some extra water that will be very welcome in those dry days. Of course, if it rains all the time, it’ll fill up quickly and won’t be much use until it gets dry again but seeing as they start at capacities of about 100 litres, that’s enough to maintain a resonably sized garden. For instance the small garden I try to maintain ideally needs about 20 litres of water to keep every plant happy.
Edit: Also, try to water your garden closer to sunset than sunrise. The earlier you water the more water will be added back to the atmosphere by the sun simply heating the ground. Watering in the evening ensures that your plants get the maximum amount of moisture.
6. Flushing
I knew I’d forgotten something last night 😉
Flushing toilets is another huge hog on the water consumption front. Every time you flush it’s a whole cictern that empties itself and gets refilled. Depending on what type of toilet you have that’s between 4 and 9 litres of clean water you flush down.
Again there’s a few things you could do. An old trick if you have space is to fit your cistern quite high and keep it with a small capacity. The gravity will compensate for the smaller volume of water flushed down. You could also fit a dual-flush system where fewer water needs to be used for ‘thinner’ waste. It’s still a waste of water mind so again there’s an opportunity to re-use rain water. If your cistern is refilled with water from a tank that gathered rain water, you don’t have to worry about wasting clean water, just about how much it’s rained lately. And finally, you could also just not flush when it’s not really necessary but that’s up to your standards at this point 😉
Finally here’s a link for further ideas to try out 🙂
Next time, we’ll look at heating and ways to make it more efficient since it accounts for a building’s direct CO2 emissions.