What Actually Matters in Saving Water at Home

Your peace is the product.

Saving water often sounds like a list of small sacrifices, shorter showers and fewer rinses. We would start with the thing that costs you nothing in comfort: the drip you do not know you have.

Leaks first, habits second

EPA’s WaterSense program says the average household’s leaks waste more than 9,300 gallons a year, that 9 percent of homes have leaks wasting 50 gallons or more per day, and that fixing easily corrected leaks can save about 10 percent on a water bill. To test a toilet, add a few drops of food coloring to the tank. If color shows in the bowl after 10 minutes, the toilet leaks. To test the whole house, note the water meter reading, use no water for two hours, and read it again. If the number changed, you likely have a leak (EPA WaterSense, Fix a Leak Week).

Habits come second, and ENERGY STAR attaches numbers to a few. A 2.5 gallon-per-minute low-flow showerhead uses about 25 gallons in a 10-minute shower, five gallons less than a bath, and can save up to $145 a year in electricity. For dishes it advises scraping instead of rinsing, running full loads and using air-dry if the dishwasher has it. For laundry it says full loads using cold water save more than 3,400 gallons a year (ENERGY STAR, Low and no-cost tips).

Put together, we read this as an order of operations. A leak works against you all day without any effort on your part, so it is the cheapest place to win. The shower, dishwasher and washing machine come after that, and the full-load and cold-water habits ask very little of you. These are averages and program estimates, so your own numbers will differ.

How we would start

Run the toilet dye test this week. It takes ten minutes and a few drops of food coloring. Then read your water meter, pause water use for two hours and read it again. If nothing moved, move on to the habits, and if the number changed, a licensed plumber or your water utility can take it from there.

The bottom line

Check for the leak first and let the habits follow. One ten-minute test is enough for this week.