According to the EPA, the average American uses around 88 gallons per day per person in the household meaning that a family of four would use roughly 10,500 gallons every month. Though different water utilities use different rate structures, assuming a flat rate of $0.003 per gallon, 10,500 gallons equates to roughly $32 per month. You may notice that this does not include the fixed charges your utility company includes in your bill to cover costs associated with maintaining existing infrastructure. Therefore, the average American water bill is roughly $70.93 per month including both fixed and variable costs. In order to get the variable cost down, it’s really as simple as just using less water, but for many this can be difficult because of habits that unknowingly use water inefficiently. Just focusing strictly on reducing your water usage, I’ve listed 5 effective ways to reduce you water bill.
1. Take Efficient Showers
The average American uses roughly 17.2 gallons of water during an 8 minute shower. In the Navy, people often use the term “Hollywood shower” to describe a long shower with very high water usage. In contrast, Navy Showers is a method of showering that allows people to conserve both water and energy by turning off the flow of water while lathering. These showers also often last less than two minutes, are cold, and can use as little as 3 gallons. Implementing a Navy Shower routine as opposed to a Hollywood shower can effectively cut your water usage more than 85% on top of the energy you save for taking a cold shower. Another way to save water during your shower without drastically changing any of your habits is to simply replace your shower head with a low flow or WaterSense labeled unit that often use no more than 2 gallons per minute. Given that standard showerheads use 2.5 gallons of water per minute, installing a low flow shower head can reduce your water usage by 20%.
2. Run full loads of laundry
Washing machines use on average 19 gallons of water per loan with an average household running 5 loads per week. This means that the average household uses roughly 400 gallons of water every month to wash clothes. In order to reduce the amount of loads, individuals can simply wait until they have a full load of laundry instead of washing clothes in smaller loads. People often argue that there may be pieces of clothing that they need in which case, individuals can hand wash that specific article of clothing. Another alternative to saving water is by installing an Energy Star Washing Machine that use 14 gallons of water per load compared to the 19 gallon usage average.
3. Water your lawn efficiently
It takes roughly 0.623 gallons of water per square foot to cover your lawn with one inch of water. Depending on where you live and how large your lawn is determines your water usage, but the average residential lawn in America is about a quarter of an acre or 10,871 square feet. In order to keep your lawn green and healthy, it is recommended to use 1 to 2 inches of water each week. This means that you would use roughly 6,772 gallons of water per week (0.623 x 10,871) or 27,090 gallons per month. Using a flat rate of $0.003 per gallon, this would equate to $81.2 per month (27,090 x 0.003) to water your lawn. According to lawn experts, about 50 to 70% of water is lost through evaporation. Therefore, watering early in the morning or late in the evening allows plant to effectively absorb water and avoid losing water from evaporation. Though there are many ways to reduce water usage from lawns some effective methods include relying on rain or installing smart watering devices. During hot periods, individuals can let their lawns naturally turn brown or be left alone for up to 2 months as grass tend to be resilient and grow back during rainfall.
4. Install Efficient Toilets
Obviously you can’t stop using the restroom in order to save water and if you did then good for you, but according to the American Water Works Association, water flushing accounts for about 24% of all household water use. Each flush of the toilet uses about 1.6 gallons which is much better than the toilets built in 1982 which used 5 to 7 gallons per flush. To take it a step further, many states suffering from lack of water have advocated for high efficiency toilets (HET) that use 1.28 gallons. Ultra-high efficiently toilets can frequently use no more than a gallon per flush and is able to remove up to 1,000 grams of waste in a single flush. If you already have a toilet and is hesitant to replace it with an efficient toilet, you can simply put a brick in your toilet’s tank to reduce water used per flush. Well placing a brick or a jar can save a small amount of water as the object reduced the water tank capacity effectively creating less gallons per flush.
5. Install aerators to your faucets
Faucets on average have a gallons per minute (gpm) anywhere between 2 to 3 gallons. Faucet aerators can reduce usage to 1 gpm, effectively save more than 50 percent of water. Faucet aerators are small and round devices that you can screw onto the tip of your faucet which effectively reduces the amount of water than comes out of the faucet. Faucet aerators not only reduces water, but it also improves water pressure and helps catch debris that may have gotten into the water. Though saving 1 gallon per minute may not sound substantial, the average family can save about 700 gallons of water per year by installing an aerator which is the equivalent of 40 showers’ worth.
