What is your water usage?

 I just had a chance to do some comparisons, and I'm stunned how much
less water we are using in our manufactured home in Alabama than we
were in our old home in south Florida.  There are a number of factors
involved, including climate, but the variations in useage bear
examining.

If you want to compare from your own water bills, a hundred cubic feet
of water is 750 gallons.

In the old home, we had a regular big old top load clothes washer,
washed some dishes by hand until the last few months there, had
regular showerheads, had the old style toilets that were flushed
whenever they were used, watered plants in the winter, had to add
water to the pool every few months, and during the summer only,
minimally used the roof sprinkler to extend the life of the roof (low
flow setting, total of about 40 min of watering a day.  Water pressure
was about 60 psi.

We were hooked to city water and tried to be prudent, but not
obsessive about our water use.  A low usage month was measured at
33000 gallons, with a couple months over a five year period close to 3
times that figure.  Looking back, I'm astounded how much water we
used, or supposedly used, especially since we had our own irrigation
well for watering the lawn, which isn't included in those figures.

When we lived in the camper this past summer, our well could only
produce 25 gal/day and we used less than 750 gal/mo.  The toilet was a
camper toilet, which might use a pint of water per flush, showers were
limited to about five minutes or less, and we had no clothes washer,
dishwasher, pool, or roof sprinkler.  We did water plants, but there
weren't as many to water.

At our new home, we have a high-efficiency clothes washer, dishwasher,
1.6gpf toilets, spa tub, and we shower regularly using a low-flow
showerhead (but less than in Florida where we were sweating all the
time).  Water is at about 45PSI through the regulator.  We have an
1100 gal storage cistern, which gets filled about 3 times a month.  

3300 gallons compared to 33000 gallons is a tenfold difference with no
pain, and the camper use of 750 gallons per month is 1/4 of that
amount. The differences are amazing, and I've become convinced that
the water saving devices are all they claim to be.  Even though our
water here is essentially free, I'm tickled, since the septic system
will be that much less loaded and the costs of heating water will be
reduced.

  On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:58:27 -0500, hchickpea@hotmail.com wrote:


for a quick second there I was very unhappy.  I just got a bill in the
past couple of weeks and did the math.  Used 55000 gallons of water.
I was like soooo annoyed and thinking that is way too much water we
are using.  Looking at my past useage it was right in line with what
we used the last two years at this time.  Then I remembered.....it is
a two month bill.  Whew.  27500 is still a lot of water but not quite
so bad for a month.
Dawn, still thinking we could do better.

 Dawn wrote:

We use ~2,000 gallons/month for two people. That includes laundry and an
automatic dishwasher.

 George wrote:

   My understanding is that automatic dishwashers use less water than
what most people use hand washing dishes.

   Jeff

 

Hi Jeff,

I've heard that as well and it's most likely true, but that's because
most people are not overly concerned by the amount of water they use.
My dishwasher uses 12 to 14 litres per load (~ 3.5 U.S. gallons).
Many newer dishwashers consume twice this amount and with older units
you can probably double that again.  By recycling my rinse water for
other purposes, I can do a full load by hand using less than 5 litres.

I also heat my dish water in an electric kettle because if I drew hot
water from the tap, I could easily waste that much or more waiting for
it to get hot.  And during the winter months, the heat from this water
can be used to help warm my home before it is released down the drain;
not so with the waste water from my dishwasher.

Cheers,
Paul