Step 2- Water

I am always amazed by how little we pay for water and sewer. The national average is $2.72 per 1,000 gallons. It is such a privilege to have easy access to great quality water.

With such a low rate perhaps it should come as little surprised that our average use of water is staggering. The national average is 70 gallons of indoor water use PER PERSON per day: http://www.drinktap.org/consumerdnn/Home/WaterInformation/Conservation/WaterUseStatistics/tabid/85/Default.aspx.

70 gallons each! That's a lot of water! Why should we care about how much water we use? Basically we'll be in a world of hurt if we suck out too much fresh water from the ground. Levels in many places across the country are dangerously low as shown here. And we're affecting plants and animals by 'using' tons of water from lakes and rivers. And my favorite reason is because we don't own the planet and its resources. We should try to minimize our impact on it, especially when it is SO easy.

I'm doing a couple things to help reduce our water use. First was installing a high efficiency aerator in the bathroom sink. The existing aerator was 2.2 gallons per minute (GPM):

This is the standard US aerator. It regulates flow to 2.2 GPM, the maximum amount allowed by law. (The 2.2 GPM limit was created by Congress back in 1992, and was signed into law by Bush senior. Why hasn't this been updated in 19 years!?)






This is what the flow looks like. Gushing waterfall anyone?






 There is no reason we need 2.2 GPM for bathroom hand washing. This amount of water is much better suited to a kitchen sink, if at all. A pair of pliers was all I needed to install the new one.

High efficiency 0.5 GPM aerator. Purchased from Greenfeet for ~$2.50 including shipping.

New improved flow. Plenty for hand washing, brushing teeth, etc.






Installation was a breeze and we're now saving 77% of our fresh water from our sink, with no loss of function. These high efficiency aerators have about the same payback as CFLs (less than a year). And similar to CFLs you can take them with you if move.

Next up was the kitchen sink.

Original sink- 2.0 GPM.






Strangely the kitchen sink had a more constrictive aerator than the bathroom sink. Goes to show how poorly thought-out this arrangement was. Our new aerator is courtesy of the City of Charlottesville:

New aerator- 1.5 GPM.

It has adjustable flow (spray or stream) with a max of 1.5 GPM. It also incorporates a swivel nozzle which is great for cleaning dishes & pots. 25% water savings in 10 minutes. We have fairly high water usage since we do all of our dishes by hand, so this will definitely have a good impact. The only problem is that the added swivel hardware makes it hard to fill up our Brita water filter jug. This is more the fault of a ridiculous low sink spout (future hardware upgrade?) than the aerator, but is worth noting.

Last was the shower head. I was surprised and impressed to see that the factory head has a flow of 1.5 GPM. This is great vs the standard 2.2 GPM!

Existing 1.5 GPM head.







Unfortunately the spray was not firm enough for our liking, so I installed a low-flow head (also from the City of Charlottesville).

Newly installed (used) 2.0 GPM shower head.







This is a 2.0 GPM head, so our water use will actually go UP. However, the original shower head had close to zero utility, so both the utility and our enjoyment will go up more dramatically.

Here were three changes that took about 20 minutes to install and a total cost of under $10. With an average lifespan of about 20 years, these fixtures will continue to produce savings long past they have earned back the initial cost. Do it for the cost savings, or the environment, but it makes sense any way you look at it.