Save 50% on Your Monthly Water Bill with a $5 Bucket

Water is a big problem for us today - not only here in sunny San Diego, CA, but the world at large.  The dwindling stock of fresh water supplies is no secret to anyone who has picked up a Wall Street Journal within the last three years.  We have discussed water at length here given that the City of San Diego approved major annual rates hikes for water supplies for the next few years.

To that end, here is another little step each of us can do to save more water than we probably thought: recover and save the excess water running from your shower while you wait for the water to get hot.  You will be absolutely amazed at how much water is wasted while we wait for our water to get hot - even if you do have a hot water pump in your house or an instant hot water heater.

This savings is created by the fact that there is actually quite a bit of water just sitting in your pipes in between your shower head and the water source.  Doesn't sound like much water, right?  That is what I thought too.

Five gallon bucket = BIG $$$ savings on water bill

I started running this experiment in my own home a few months ago.  I bought a simple five gallon bucket from Ace Hardware and put it under my shower head where it collected excess water while I waited for the shower to heat up.  It is worth noting that all of my showers are fitted with SDG&E supplied Energy Saver (low-flow) Shower heads, so wasted water is already kept to a minimum.  The shower I used for this experiment is also located just ten feet from the water heater.  I was trying to use the most efficient setup possible to see what a minimum savings/efficiency threshold would look like.

After just one week I found that I was saving five gallons every two days taking just one shower a day from the shower just ten feet from the water heater and outfitted with a high-efficiency shower head.  Wow.  I had so much excess water that I began to dump my excess shower water into a large spare trash can.  I filled the large trash can in a little under three weeks.  I now use this water to irrigate my yard.  I have completely shutdown my backyard irrigation system and gone to just using a simple backpack-style hand pump sprayer (similar to one you would use for insecticide).

My water bill was cut in half.  That's right - a 50% reduction in water consumption and no adverse consequences to show for it.  If anything, I found my yard was getting TOO MUCH water using just the shower excess (my backyard is well shaded) and I have now started to use the water in the front yard too, but there is not enough water savings to completely replace irrigation in the front yard, unfortunately.


Is this a particularly big deal in the scheme of things?  No, not at all.  But you might be able to save yourself 50% per month on your water bill - especially if you have a family or a large house.  Now I would say that is something worth noting.

These same types of practices are applied everyday here at Old Town Plaza - Old Town's Greenest Commercial Office Building.  To find out more about what we are doing at Old Town Plaza to reduce our environmental impact or about how you can get into the premier commercial office space in Old Town, check out our website at www.LeaseOldTown.com or call our office to schedule a tour.  Our available listings can be found here: http://www.leaseoldtown.com/leasing.html

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