30 ways to save water at home

We all need to think about how to save water at home. Despite its apparent ease of access, our water supply is not free and is not infinite. Water is precious. We share a planet where safe drinking water is not equally available to all, yet we all need it to survive - we literally cannot live without it.

This is sometimes hard for us to grasp in the UK, where we’re a small island surrounded by water and it seems to rain more often than it doesn’t. Yet we’re always one dry spell away from a water shortage.

We’re all familiar with climate change, rising temperatures, and the prospect of warnings to not waste our tap water after a couple of weeks of no rain. So , when our natural supply of water is increasingly becoming imbalanced, how can we balance the flow in our own homes? In this article, we share some top water saving tips that will help you reduce your water usage.

Why is saving water important

Saving water is important for a few different reasons. It saves the planet by keeping more water in wildlife and reducing the stress on ecosystems; it reduces energy consumption by minimising the heating and filtering that’s needed in water production; and it saves you time and money.

It reduces the stress on water companies (and therefore, the planet)

Our local water companies capture far less rain than we might assume. 12 out 23 water companies in England are classed as being under stress. 

Most of us aren’t aware of the extent of our water consumption, and we assume we each use around 50-100 litres a day. Yet, on average, we currently go through around 140 litres each every day.

We’re using almost twice as much water as we were 60 years ago and our demand is only set to rise. This puts stress on the planet, as we’re needing to use more water to provide for everyone.

It drains the supply of our most precious commodity quicker than we can refill it. In turn, ecosystems are put under stress as their homes are being destroyed.

By reducing water usage, water companies won’t need to resort to using more and more water, and the planet’s wildlife can live peacefully.

Saving water reduces carbon footprint

Lots of energy is needed to filter, heat, and pump water to your home. By reducing water usage and lessening the demand for water, there won’t be as much energy needed to produce water (especially at times when water is in high demand).

Reducing water usage saves you money

Figuring out how to save water will not only help protect our planet, but it will help reduce your energy bills and generally improve the efficiency of your home and garden.

Heating the water in our homes constitutes a significant chunk of our energy bills, and demanding more tap water only puts the water companies under more pressure to collect, treat and pump more and more water into our homes more quickly. This uses up more and more energy, costs more money.

Follow these water saving tips to help bring down your household costs and do your bit to help protect the future of our planet.

30 tips on how to save water

Simply adding these to your daily routine will eventually become a habit and will save vast amounts of water.

1. Fit flow regulators or aerators to your taps.
2. Don’t keep your tap running when brushing your teeth. This wastes around 6 litres of water a minute.
3. Take short showers rather than baths.
4. Don’t water your lawn. Grass is hardy and will quickly spring back to life once it rains again.
5. Only run your dishwasher and washing machine when they’re full, and use the eco or economy settings.
6. Using a bucket rather than a hose to wash your car can save around 220 litres of water.
7. Check the weather before watering your garden. If it’s raining tomorrow, your garden can wait.
8. Swap your shower head with a more efficient eco one that regulates the water flow, such as these ones from Showery.
9. Fit dual flush toilets so you can choose to use less water. This could halve your loo’s water consumption.
10. If you have to use a watering can, hose or sprinkler to save your garden plants during a dry spell, use them in the morning or early evening when the sun won’t evaporate so much water.
11. Wash your dog in the garden rather than the bath so your garden can get a watering at the same time!
12. Leftover water in your glass? Give your houseplants a drink!
13. Only pour the amount of water you need into your kettle when boiling it.
14. Fit a cistern displacement device (CDD) to your toilet, free from most water companies. They can save up to 5000 litres of water a year.
15. Stick a 4-minute shower timer to your shower wall, such as these from ShowerBoB.
16. Use a trigger nozzle on your garden hose so you only spray when you mean to.
17. Don’t rinse your dirty dishes before you put them in the dishwasher, just scrape off any leftovers into the bin.
18. Boiling veggies, rice, potatoes or pasta? Put a lid on it! This stops all the water evaporating.
19. Let your grass grow a bit - short grass dries quicker so needs watering more often.
20. When using the loo, follow the 3P rule - only poo, pee and paper down the toilet. As well as preventing blockages, this also saves water by not needlessly flushing rubbish away that should go in your bin.
21. Use a water butt to collect rainwater for your garden.
22. Use a lower setting or the eco mode on your electric or power shower.
23. Be sure to fix leaky taps and showers, they could add up to 5,500 litres of wasted water a year.
24. Fix your leaky loo. This could be wasting from 70,000 to 150,000 litres of water a year.
25. Use your dirty bathwater to water the garden (as long as you’re not watering fruit or veg).
26. Don’t wash your hair every day, it reduces its natural oils. Try dry shampoo.
27. Rinse veggies in a bowl so you can re-use the water for a similar task.
28. Use mulch or bark on your garden beds to reduce the amount of water evaporating.
29. Use a home water system that only dispenses the exact amount of water that you need.
30. Use a home water dispenser that chills and heats your tap water. This saves on running your water until it’s hot or cold enough for you - and saves on the energy used by a kettle.
    
    

Hopefully here we’ve given you lots of ideas on how to reduce water usage at home. While some of them are a bit more involved, others are super easy.

Even if some of them mean a bit of an upfront cost, in the long term they’ll be saving you water, and saving you time, energy and money.

These water saving tips will also help save the planet at a time when climate change not only threatens our weather patterns, and therefore our supply of drinking water, but also the natural environment for thousands of species of wildlife.

For the ultimate in saving water at home and getting the most out of your tap water, take a look at our home water systems. 

Next, make sure to check out our article on plastics in the ocean and what this means for your water and food.