Simple Ways to Conserve Water this Spring

You’re on the right track when you’ve found a way to save both water and money in your everyday life. This is definitely something you can accomplish when you develop an effective plan to conserve water in your household. This endeavor can be helped along considerably by referring to the federal WaterSense program, whose whole purpose is encouraging the conservation of water in homes and businesses. Check out some WaterSense ideas for saving water at home:

• Toilets — Toilets use the most water (and waste the most) in most homes. WaterSense-certified low-flow toilets do much better (by 20 percent on average) than the industry standard of 1.6 gallons per flush. Not only do low-flow toilets use less water these days, modern technology also has made them so they’re much more effective at expelling waste in one flush. You’re not saving water if you need to flush the toilet twice. Moreover, the new dual-flush toilets just use 0.8 gallons per flush for removing liquid waste, while consuming more for eliminating solid waste.
• Showers — Another way to conserve water is by altering your shower habits and installing low-flow, WaterSense-approved showerheads. These shower heads output less than 2 gallons of water per minute, as compared to standard shower heads that deliver more than 2.5 gallons per minute. The good news is that the low-flow showerheads, in most cases, don’t change your shower experience. You’ll be hard-pressed to notice that less water is spraying out the shower head.
• Bathroom faucets — Nowadays, household faucets cannot exceed a minimum standard of outputting 2.2 gallons per minute. This is a big change from 25 years ago, when faucets sprayed water at 3-7 gallons per minute. And like with shower heads, the user won’t notice that less water is coming out.
• Just use less water — Don’t water your yard or garden any more than necessary, for example.

For more advice on how to conserve water in your Portland area home, please contact us at Roth Heating & Cooling.We have nearly 40 years of experience providing plumbing, HVAC, and electrical services to Portland and the surrounding communities.