Water
Key Websites
H2ouse Water Saver Home
www.h2ouse.org
A guide to conserving water from the California Urban Water Conservation Council.
Take Back the Tap
www.takebackthetap.org
Movement to end the use of bottled water in restaurants and return to local tap water.
City Water Webpages
Napa – http://tinyurl.com/napawater
Calistoga – http://tinyurl.com/calistogawater
St. Helena - http://tinyurl.com/sthelwater
Article on Water Conservation
You Don’t Miss the Water Till the Well Runs Dry”
(from Napa Valley Life Magazine – Feb-Mar 2009)
Water Saving Tips
Showers
Keep them short. Share them. Replace any normal shower heads with low-flow. They’re inexpensive, and most municipalities even give them away for free. You can reduce water usage by almost 50% and save the cost and energy of heating water as well.
Faucets
When brushing your teeth or washing your face, turn the water off except when you actually need it. You can save several gallons of water each time.
Toilets
Toilets are the largest water-wasters in the home, using up to 25% of your home’s water consumption and wasting gallons of water with every flush. Toilet tanks should use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush. If your toilet predates 1994, you probably need a more efficient one. Most municipalities provide low-flush toilets at little or no charge. Check with yours.
If you can’t put in a low-flush toilet, at least add plastic displacement bags to your toilets. (Don’t use bricks. They just break apart and cause problems.)
For urine only, it’s not necessary to flush each time. Save the water for when it’s essential. As they used to say during the 1970s drought, “Brown goes down, but yellow is mellow.”
Composting Toilets
With one flush of your toilet you’re using more water than a majority of people in the world have access to in an entire day. And in most cases, you’re flushing not just water, but drinking water.
Composting toilets save huge amounts of water, since they never use any. The human manure ends up as compost—in a safe, sanitary and non-smelly method.
Composting Toilet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet
From Wikipedia.
Composting Toilet World
www.compostingtoilet.org
Extensive information from Envirolet, a manufacturer of composting toilets.
Waterless urinals are also available, although more often seen in commercial establishments.
Leaks
Leaks can waste many gallons of water a day. Check for toilet leaks, as well as leaky faucets and water pipes. For toilets, put a drop or two of food coloring in your tank. If the color appears in the bowl, you’ve got a leak.
Rainwater
Capturing rainwater is called “rainwater harvesting”. It basically means water delivered directly to your home from the skies at no charge. You just have to catch it, clean it, and store it. Assuming you have enough rainfall in your area, it’s a way to become self-sufficient—or to at least supplement your municipally-supplied water.
Rain Barrel Guide
www.rainbarrelguide.com
How to use rain barrels for water collection. Excellent overview and specifics.
Natural Rain Water
www.naturalrainwater.com
Information, products, and how to make a rain barrel.
Graywater
Graywater is the water from dishwashing, laundry, showering and bathing. While no one wants to drink it, plants are happy to get it. You can set up a system that will save and recycle that water to be used in your garden. To use graywater on food crops, check first with the county health department.
Graywater Central
www.graywater.net
All about graywater
Laundry
The optimal and most economical use of water—and electricity—is to wash only full loads of laundry (“full” as determined by the washer manufacturer; don’t cram the laundry in the washer). Smaller loads use just as much electricity, and often more water than necessary, even with water volume set on a partial amount. If you need a new washer, get the water-saving front-loading style.
Lawns and Gardens
The best thing you can do is rip out your lawns—which are heavy users of water—and replace them with vegetable gardens. Food is more important than trying to pass off your home as an English manor house.
If you have to have a lawn, at least water it during early morning or late afternoon hours to minimize evaporation. If you have to have decorative landscaping, at least use edible landscaping.
The City of Napa has created a “waterwise” garden at Napa Fire Station No. 3, at the corner of Solano and Trower. This garden demonstrates the water-saving advantages of native and other drought-tolerant plants. It is decorative only. No vegetables are grown. In my opinion, the city missed an excellent opportunity to show how residents could grow vegetables intensively, with minimal water and labor.
There are three basic methods for removing a lawn:
- Use a hoe and spade to scrape away the turf, then turn the soil.
- Use a spade and remove the turf in pieces, cutting roots along the way.
- Cover the grass with newspaper, then cover the paper with six inches or so of topsoil. Some months later the grass will have died off and decomposed. (This method is obviously easier, but takes much longer.)
Converting Lawns to Gardens
www.backyardnature.net/simple/lawn2gar.htm
Lawns to Gardens
www.yougrowgirl.com/lawns_gardens_convert.php
You don’t need to make major sacrifices in conserving water, just small behavior changes. You can save water, energy—and money—with a few simple changes in your everyday practices. Why not start? If we all do it voluntarily now, we might even be able to avoid mandatory conservation in the future.
Use Less Water and Save
Here are some normal household uses of water, how much water they use normally, and how much less they use if you try to conserve.
- Shower – Normal, 25 gallons – Wet down, soap up, rinse off, 4 gallons.
- Brushing teeth – Tap running, 2 gallons – Wet brush, rinse briefly, one-quarter gallon.
- Shaving – Tap running, 10 gallons – Fill basin, 1 gallon.
- Dishwashing – Tap running, 15 gallons – Wash in dishpan or sink, 5 gallons.
- Automatic dishwasher – Full cycle, 16 gallons – Short cycle, 7 gallons.
- Washing hands – Tap running, 2 gallons – Fill basin, 1 gallon.
- Flushing toilet – Normal, 3.5-5 gallons – Low-flow toilet, 1.6 gallons.
