How to Save Money on Your Monthly Water Bill

Are you looking to save money on your family’s monthly water bill? If so, I have a few tips that may help. My family and I were able to reduce our monthly water bill by about $25. That’s roughly a savings of $300 a year. Here’s how we did it:

Repair Drips

One of the first things that my husband and I did to reduce our water bill was to check for leaks. We did that because one drippy faucet has the potential to waste 34 gallons of water or more per year. If you don’t believe me, you can check the facts out for yourself on the U.S. Geological Survey’s website. It has a great drip calculator tool that you can use to determine how much water you are potentially wasting per year with each leaky faucet.

Install Low-Flow Aerators

We also installed low-flow aerators on all of our home’s water faucets and replaced our shower head. The aerators help to deliver a steady, albeit smaller, stream of water that allows us to complete our normal daily routine at a reduced cost. The low-flow shower head alone saved us roughly 35 gallons of water per shower. It also saved us on electricity because our hot water heater had to heat up less water during every shower.

Replace Toilets

After we tackled the faucets, we turned our attention towards the toilet. When we first moved into our home, it had an old toilet that used a lot of water. It also leaked. As such, we replaced it with a water-saving, high-efficiency model and adjusted the length of the toilet’s flush cycle. Thus far, it has worked well. The downside is that sometimes the toilet needs to be flushed more than once to clear the bowl, which defeats the purpose of installing a water-saving model in the first place.

Install Dry Well

We were told that installing a dry well helps to lower a home’s water bill by reducing the pressure being put onto a home’s septic tank. Unfortunately, government regulations in certain areas prohibit the installation of a dry well. As such, we decided to reduce the strain on our home’s septic tank in other ways. For starters, we bought an ENERGY STAR washing machine that is said to use 14 gallons of water per load. I also make it a point to only wash laundry on sunny days when I have enough clothes to wash a full load. I also help out by trying not to run the washing machine immediately before or after taking a shower. Doing each of those things helps to keep a deluge of grey water from entering the septic tank at one time.

Wash Dishes Prudently

Once that was taken care of, we started to look at how much water we were wasting in other ways. One thing that I decided to do in order to save money was wash our dishes more prudently. Before, I use to let the water run while I soaped up and rinsed one dish at a time. Now, I keep the faucet in the off position until I am ready to ready to rinse all the dishes at once.

Utilize a Rain Bucket

We also decided to reduce our water bill by utilizing rain buckets. It worked too. Nowadays, we save the rain water runoff from our roof and use it to water our plants. We also use rain water to clean our vehicles, outdoor lawn furniture and deck.

Killeen Gonzalez is a homeowner with a history of doing home improvement projects with her family.

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