5 Ways to Conserve Water at Home (To Cut Your Water Bill)

Darren Driscoll • Jul 08, 2013

5-ways-to-conserve-waterDoes your water bill skyrocket during the summer? These 5 ways to conserve water at home can help you cut your water bill in half!

These methods are generally inexpensive and easy to implement. It takes all 5 of them to really cut your bill, however.

1. Track Down Leaks

A leaking faucet is pretty obvious. However, just because you don’t hear or see a leak doesn’t mean that one doesn’t exist.

To find out, turn off every faucet in your home. Now, go out to your water meter.

Is the white triangle on your water meter moving? Then you’ve got a leak somewhere in your home.

One of your toilets is probably the culprit. You can use a leak detection dye tab to find out.

Simply remove the tank from the back of the toilet and drop in the tabs. Wait about ten minutes, then look in the bowl.

If the water in the bowl is blue then your flapper has gone bad. Replace the flapper to stop the leak.

2. Replace Your Toilet

Speaking of toilets, make sure you don’t have an older one. If your toilet was installed before 1994 it could be using up to seven gallons of water per flush!

By contrast, newer toilets use 1.6 gallons per flush. Some use even less.

The $200 or so that you spend on a quality low-flow toilet will generally pay for itself in short order.

3. Install a Low-Flow Shower Head

Low-flow shower heads use just 2.5 gallons of water per minute. If your shower head was installed prior to 1992 it’s probably still using 3-12 gallons per minute.

That’s money that you’re washing down the drain. Low-flow shower heads offer a good cheap fix, since you can buy one for less than $10.

4. Tackle Your Kitchen Sink

You can find kitchen sink aerators that are as efficient as 0.5 gallons per minute. Even newer kitchen faucets may only be equipped with a 2.2 gpm aerator, so there’s lots of room for savings.

5. Reduce Wasted Water in Your Back Yard

During the summer you may be spending a lot of water on your lawn and garden. Rainwater harvesting or micro-irrigation are two ways that you could lower your bills.

The money that you save on water could be used on doing fun things this summer, so consider tackling your water use today!

We install seamless aluminum rain gutters in Ocala and the rest of the Tampa Bay area. Good gutters are another way to save money by keeping your home’s foundations safe from excess water. Fill out the form on the right to contact us for a free estimate today.

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