In the Home
Here's just some of the ways you can help save precious water every day.
- Install a water meter - homes with a water meter (28% of British homes) use 10% less water on average. You can measure what you save through rainwater harvesting, and what you could save elsewhere, too.
- Make sure everyone in your house knows where the internal stop-tap is in case of a burst pipe.
- Fit insulation to hot and cold water pipes - a lot of water can be wasted by running taps whilst waiting for the water to get hot. Frozen pipes which burst during winter also waste a lot of water. If there is a long pipe run between your hot water tank and a basin or sink, think about installing a separate water heater.
In the kitchen
- Reuse water and don’t use running taps if you can help it. A running kitchen tap uses 10 litres a minute, enough to fill a bath in 8 minutes.
- Wash salads and vegetables in a bowl - the remaining water is ideal for houseplants.
- A fully loaded dishwasher uses less water, and is more hygienic, than washing the same load by hand. Make it a full load when you use your washing machine too. Reducing the number of loads by one a week will save over 5,000 litres a year.
- Don't overfill kettles and saucepans – boil only what you need.
- Use the right size of saucepans – boiling one egg in a vast pan wastes water and energy.
- Keep tap water cold in a bottle or jug in the fridge instead of running a tap or buying bottled mineral water.
- Always wash up in a bowl instead of running a tap and use another bowl of clean water to rinse.
In the bathroom
- Fill a glass to brush your teeth – leaving a tap on wastes up to 5 litres a minute.
- Checking the temperature of your bath as it fills, reduces the amount of water you use and cold water you have to add.
- Take short showers - a 5 minute shower uses about a third of the water as a bath, but power showers can be 3 times that.
- Use a plastic bottle full of water or a ‘hippo’ in your toilet cistern – flushing uses up to 30% of our mains water.
- Dual flush systems on new toilets save around 30% of water.
- Replace worn washers - dripping taps can waste up to 4 litres a day.