Don’t let it run down the drain. We are all familiar with the practice of turning on the shower or sink to allow the water to heat up to a comfortable temperature. We still follow this practice, but instead of letting the water just run down the drain, we now use a bucket to catch the water. We’ve found that if we start the water on hot, it takes a little over a minute to warm up and we catch a little over a gallon in the bucket.

Turn it off to lather up. Several gallons of water can be saved by turning off the water while washing hair and, well … everything else. Once you’re wet enough to get soapy, just turn the water off. Turn it back on to rinse off.

Test for leaks. Even a small leak can add up to hundreds of gallons per year of wasted water down the drain. We had no faucet leaks in our house, but we found leaks in all three toilets. There are several places and mechanisms that can leak in a toilet, but the two that can go unnoticed are the flapper and the fill valve. A couple of our toilets had small leaks in both, and the third was leaking at the flapper only. We just replaced all three flappers and fill valves. To test for a leaky flapper, let the tank fill and turn the water supply off. Note the water level in the tank and check it again in a couple of hours. If the water level dropped, you have a leaky flapper (or the tank is leaking, but you would notice a wet floor). A leaky fill valve will result in the water level reaching the height of the plastic tube and water continuously overflowing the tube.

Reuse. What do you do with the buckets of water caught in the shower as it heats up? Well, the place we use the most water is actually filling the toilet tank in the master bathroom. We just turn off the water supply and manually fill the tank after a flush with the water in the bucket. We also use it for household cleaning and watering plants.

If you have a suggestion or tip for conservation or reuse, post a comment to this entry.