You don’t want to send your water down the drain unless it does something useful for you, such as washing your dishes, your clothes or yourself, or irrigating your lawn. Who wants to pay for water if it’s going to waste?
As your trusted Roanoke plumber, Southern Trust Home Services has some useful tips on how homeowners can save water and money:
- Don’t leave the kitchen faucet running if you’re not washing a dish or filling a pot. Turning off the bathroom faucet while you’re brushing your teeth can save eight gallons a day.
- Don’t run the water continuously waiting for it to heat up. If the piping in your house is making you wait too long for hot water, give us a call so we can make recommendations. There are hot water recirculation devices that can be installed in an existing house to get hot water to a fixture quickly.
- Showers are a better water conservation choice. Showers consume somewhere around 10-25 gallons of water. A bath may be luxurious, but they use anywhere from 40-70 gallons, depending on the size of your tub.
- Wait until the dishwasher is full before you run it. In the same way, either wait until you have a full load of laundry before running the washing machine or, if it’s available, adjust the water level to match the size of the load. Newer front-loading clothes washers generally use a lot less water than older models.
- In the yard, water your lawn and garden in the early morning with a sprinkler that emits droplets, not mist. Make sure the sprinklers only water plantings, not your driveway or sidewalk. Don’t cut your grass too short. Leaving the grass a bit longer helps it retain soil moisture and shades the roots.
- An inexpensive way to save water at faucets is to install a WaterSense labeled aerator, which can reduce water use by 30% without sacrificing performance.
Professional Help
Sometimes, though, saving money means addressing problems with your plumbing system. Leaks waste a lot of water — a drip rate of one drip per second can waste 3,000 gallons per year, according to the EPA WaterSense program. Call Southern Trust to repair any leaky pipes, toilets or faucets.
To check for a toilet leak, put food coloring in the tank. If it shows up in the bowl, the flapper is leaking. A high-performance WaterSense labeled toilet is a good investment. They have been independently tested and most of them will flush as much as 2.2 pounds of waste — you don’t have to worry about repeated flushing or plunging. A WaterSense labeled toilet can save a family of four more than $90 annually on its water utility bill, and $2,000 over the lifetime of toilet.
As your Roanoke plumber, Southern Trust will never sell you something that you don’t need, and our upfront pricing means you won’t pay more than the price you agreed to when the job was started.
If you’re ready to learn more about how we can help you save water and money, contact Southern Trust today or call (540) 343-4348 for more information.
