Water Warrior

Posted: January 8, 2008

I had a little heart to heart talk with my daughter a while back about her long showers. Lauren responded beautifully by cutting back dramatically on her water use. She now has that crusader spirit when it comes to water conservation and I appreciate it very much.

In fact Lauren suggested that I open up this blog to the topic.

What have you done to answer the water saving battle cry?

We will honor the person with the most interesting or inspiring story a prize.

As a fairly competitive person I've been known to use a stop watch in the shower. And I've cut back on water use while shaving. We do the yellow mellow thing at home but we could do a lot more. I plan to buy a few rain barrels before spring.

Lynda Loveland is doing her part by saving the baby water to drench her plants. She and her husband Randall have also installed low flow faucets.

Elizabeth Gardner is also doing similar things to cut back on water use. She admires her neighbor who sets up buckets in the shower.

What about you? Are you a water warrior?

24 Comments

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As much as I like to fish and boat, you can bet that I am conserving water whenever I can! I too am using the shower water. It gives me at least one flush a day for the comode. It's just me here and I know that's not a lot of water saved, but every little bit helps.

I may have stumbled on a new and unspoken of way to save water. There's some new houses being built across the street from me and recently I have noticed a notable lack of water pressure, especially in my sink's faucets. The results are that I am using a lot less water, especially when rinsing the dishes. Although it takes a little longer, I am not complaining since there's less wasted water going down the drain. What if everyone in the area reached under their sinks and turned the cutoffs down a little? I would just about bet that the results would show up in usage instantly...especially on their water bills and the lake levels. Just an idea on creative ways to conserve.

Made In USA
January 13, 2008 8:52 a.m.

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In ranch style homes, the hot water heater is generally located on one end of the house or the other, not in the middle. It takes the hot water for ever to get to the other end of the house. We are going to install a small hot water heater in our bathroom to solve this problem. In the mean time though, we will catch that cold water in buckets for watering plants or other uses, and can also use our other shower at the other end of the house where the water heats faster(we are recently empty nested so this works well for us). Also, during Christmas parties and dinner, I filled up the sink with water for rinsing dishes instead of rinsing them individually under the faucet. I'm sure this saved tons of water in the long run, plus most dishes don't need to be rinsed if you have a good dishwasher.

Raleighnative58
January 9, 2008 1:15 p.m.

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Some folks mentioned waiting for the water in the shower to turn warm, and using buckets to collect that (which is great). Another thing you can do is insulate the hot water pipes leading from the heater with foam or another insulator. (As well as an insulating cover around the heater itself.) This way the water gets hot faster, because what's in the pipes already stays warmer longer. This helps save both water and energy.

RaleighRob
January 9, 2008 10:08 a.m.

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Hey Shirley...they make these little water dishes that make a fountain just for cats like yours. check out the pet store and you and your cat can be happy!!

RUsleeping
January 8, 2008 10:34 p.m.

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We are doing similar water-saving efforts as outlined by many of you. However, our largest hurdle is with our diabetic cat, Chelsea, who is addicted to fresh running water from a sink faucet. To appease her and the Governor, we now empty her water bowl into a bucket of water we collect from showers, then put her empty water bowl in the bathroom sink directly under the faucet. We then turn on the faucet to a slow trickle for a brief time so Chelsea can enjoy fresh running water and at the same time fill up her water bowl. Water collected in the shower buckets is then used in our washing machine two or three times a week.

shirleyisenhour
January 8, 2008 9:31 p.m.

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Lynda Loveland is doing her part by saving the baby water to drench her plants. She and her husband Randall have also installed low flow faucets.

Ummm isn't grey water against NC laws? Is this inside plants or outside plants? If it's outside she might consider reading up on grey water in NC.....

mrtwinturbo
January 8, 2008 8:25 p.m.

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Everyone in my house likes to take long showers, so we've all cut back quite a bit on that. My kids now know to not let the water run while they brush their teeth. Our grass has all been brown for a while now. My husband and I both have dirty cars! Nothing drastic, but we've tried to conserve in several small ways

ajstarrrn
January 8, 2008 8:15 p.m.

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We have a energy saving front loader that uses very little water, our lawn is dead (triple savings there on water, gas for the mower and polution from the mower), save the water from the sinks while waiting for the water to heat up to water flowers outside, went to container gardens, our cars look like we have been four wheeling, we wear our clothes more than one (outer wear), shower quickly, mellow yellow, wait until the dishwasher is full...whew.

Now we just need to purchase rain barrels.

RUsleeping
January 8, 2008 7:44 p.m.

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Good point, Gandalf The White, but you need to use the yellow/mellow rule to make that tactic worthwhile.

thefensk
January 8, 2008 4:03 p.m.

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PrayerGal here and while I pray for rain daily, I also have a few tricks up my sleeve. #1: My dog drinks water like it is going out of style. Some say gross- but instead of filling up her water dish 3-4 times a day- she drinks from the commode. It's always cold, it's always clean, it's always there. #2 The toilet itself. In each toilet tank, we have placed a 2 liter bottle full of sand. Water is not needed for that area, so it's less water in the tank. #3 Back to the dog. Her baths are now in the guest bathroom shower. We have a massager shower head that comes down and she gets a quit spray down, get's all suddsy, then a quite rinse. This only happens once a month. #4 We have a couple of buckets on the deck for catching rain water. Then we bottle and use for house plants. #5 I wash dishes in the dishwasher. I am huge water waster when trying to wash everything by hand + we've moved to paper plates for a lot of food. But then there's the landfill issue- so thats a win/lose situation.