Thankful for rain... but still in a severe drought

We are so very thankful for the rain we got over the last week or so. But, by no means is this drought over. Here is a quick visual from the Department of Water Resources.

The shaded blue is the historical average. The red line is the drought of 76-77. In my community that drought impacted our area by a drop of 40% in our local economy.

The solid blue is current levels. Lower than even the drought of 76-77.

Bottom line, we are thankful for this rain but need to keep hoping and praying for more of it.

Water Conservation #3 - indoor water fixtures

 

This is my third installment in the series on saving water. Here we focus on a quick and pretty painless conversion from traditional shower heads and faucets to a water saving package that I picked up at the box home improvement store.

 

While searching for individual water saving items - which was actually difficult since there are tons to choose from and I had a toddler with me - I managed to find this wonderful package of items. It was about $12 with tax for the whole package. I saw it, grabbed it and headed for the checkout. The package included a shower head, kitchen faucet aerator and two bathroom faucet aerators.

My wonderful husband installed them. The shower was easy, the kitchen sink was easy, but the bathrooms were for a different thread. I haven't made it to the hardware store to get the correct thread, so those haven't been used yet. But literally the other items just screwed right on. I don't even think we needed tools.

 

According to the back of the package, we should be looking at some pretty good power savings. But we are just looking at and measuring the water savings. 

 

So far, no complaints about the change. We won't track the power savings, but hopefully that is a bonus on top of the water savings. With a whopping $12 invested, we don't need much savings to pay for it.

Water Conservation #1 - toilets



With a terrible drought and water rates on the rise, there is more incentive now than ever before to conserve water. I'm bringing you a series of posts with practical ways for you to save water in your home. Some of these I've already implemented in our home but I'll be implementing all of them possible in a 'test' home in order to actually compare the water savings to the prior year. I'm excited to see how these changes actually impact the water use and bill, instead of just calculating expected savings. 

So to start this series on water conservation in your home, let's start with the quickest and easiest. You don't need tools or a trip to the store. You should be able to find everything you need right in your home and not need to spend a thing. This is my kind of water conservation - free and painless.

Basically we are going to put something in the tank of the toilet to take up space that would normally be filled by water to make your ordinary toilet a water saving toilet. 

In our old house I used a simple plastic water bottle. It fit just right and never fell down (note that if the bottle falls down it disrupts the mechanics of the toilet and might actually waste water). But the toilets in our current house are different and the water bottle didn't work. So I scrounged around in the cupboards and decided to try some jars. This is a glass jar that used to hold almond butter from Costco. I gathered up a few big rocks from the yard to add even more weight to be sure it dosen't move around. 

Then I added it to the toilet tank. Easy. Seriously this took 5 minutes and cost nothing. It would have been faster if I hadn't stopped for pictures. 

The only hard part about this is figuring out how much savings this will give you in water. Very old toilets can use as much as 7 gallons per flush if they are pre 1990s. But newer toilets can use as little as 1.6 gallons. If you have a super efficient toilet, you may not want to add anything to the tank. But if it isn't already maximum efficiency, this should help you get there. And if you find the toilet isn't handling the dirty work, just remove whatever jar or bottle you added to the tank.

There are also a few other options for you that will require a trip to the hardware store.

1. A toilet float bag like this one - http://www.homedepot.com/p/AM-Conservation-Group-Inc-Toilet-Tummy-Tank-Water-Saver-S-TT010/203620716#

2. An adjustable flapper like this - http://www.homedepot.com/p/AM-Conservation-Group-Inc-2-in-Adjustable-Water-Saving-Toilet-Tank-Flapper-S-B6025/203620239#

3. An adjustable flusher conversion kit like this one - http://www.homedepot.com/p/BlueSource-HydroRight-Dual-Flush-Converter-HYR271/202267979#

4. A new super efficient toilet

I will note that my local hardware stores - even the big ones - did not carry the linked items in store so you may need to order them online.

So see if this works for you and you can start saving water and money today without spending a dime. And check back for my upcoming posts on water saving fixtures and landscape.