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Save water in and around the home | Save water outside the home | Water saving resources
Ways you can save water in and around the home
- Check your toilet for leaks
A leaking toilet may not be seen or heard but can waste more than 16,000 litres of water in a year. To check for leaks, put a little food colouring in your toilet tank. If, without flushing, the colouring begins to appear in the bowl, the cistern should be repaired immediately.
To obtain a leak tester kit, please contact us.
- Stop using your toilet as a wastebasket
Every time you flush rubbish down the toilet, you waste at least eleven litres.
- Install or convert your toilet to dual flush
Install a dual flush toilet and use the half flush when needed.
- Take shorter showers
Long, hot showers waste ten to twenty litres of water every unneeded minute. Limit your showers to the time it takes to soap up, wash down and rinse off.
- Install water saving shower heads or flow restrictions
Many shower heads put out twenty litres of water a minute, while ten litres is actually enough for a refreshing, cleansing shower. Your local hardware or plumbing supply store should stocks inexpensive, water-saving shower heads that you can install yourself. For even less money, you can purchase a small valve that will limit flow through your present shower head.
- Check taps and pipes for leaks
Even a small drip from a worn washer can waste 200 or more litres of water a day. Larger leaks can waste thousands of litres.
- Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth & shaving
After wetting your toothbrush, fill a glass of water for rinsing your mouth, there is no need to keep water pouring down the drain. For shaving, fill the bottom of your sink with a few inches of warm water.
- Only use your automatic washing machine for full loads
Every time you run your washing machine, you use about 120 litres of water. So make each wash count, by making sure they are full washes. When buying a new appliance, check its waterwise.
- If you wash dishes by hand, don't leave the water running for rinsing
If you have two sinks, fill one with soapy water and one with rinse water. If you have one sink, gather all the washed dishes in the dish rack and rinse them with an inexpensive spray device.
- Keep a bottle of drinking water in the refrigerator
This ends the wasteful practice of running tap water to cool it off for drinking.
- Don't let the tap run while you clean vegetables
You can achieve the same results by putting a plug in the sink and filling the sink with clean water.
- Save water when cooking
Use only a little water in your saucepans when cooking most food, and keep the lid on! This not only saves water and water heating energy, but it gives you tastier, healthier food, too.
- Cleaning the footpath
Never use a hose to clean the footpath. Use a broom it's quicker and more efficient.
- Washing the car
Follow these simple rules and you will have a gleaming clean car with a minimum of water and effort - and your lawn will benefit at the same time.
- Park the car on the lawn.
- Give the car a quick spray with the hose to loosen dirt and grit.
- Turn off the hose and wipe away the dirt a section at a time with a sponge soaked in soapy water from a bucket.
- Each time a section has been completed, use a brief spray with the hose and rinse away the loosened dirt and soap.
- Wipe the car dry with a clean cloth or chamois.
A Wannon Water Home Water Audit will help you better understand your current water use and how close you are to best practice water use.
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Ways to save water outside the house
- Soak don't spray
While giving the garden a quick drink every night may be good therapy for you, it does nothing for the plants. Most of this water is wasted through evaporation. Water your plants every fourth day in summer but water for longer periods. This makes the plants hardier and encourages the roots to go deeper into the soil to seek out moisture.
- Use a good mulch
Mulches can prevent up to 70% evaporation loss and they are one of the cheapest and easiest ways to make the most of water in the garden. The best mulch is a well rotted compost which will also improve the soil structure.
- Group plantings make sense
By grouping the plants in the garden into high or low water users, you can design a watering pattern that is better for your plants and will prevent waste on plants that don't need it.
- Remove weeds
Weeds compete for water and nutrient in the garden. Once removed, a good mulch will help stop other weeds taking root.
- Install a drip system
This is probably the most beneficial and efficient method of watering your plants. It places the water where it's needed and at a rate the soil can absorb. It's also cheap and easy to install.
- Use micro-sprays on garden beds
If you have a lot of annuals or ferns and feel that a drip system is not appropriate, use a micro-spray. The water is placed on the garden at a rate the soil can absorb thereby reducing water lost as run-off.
- Catch it if you can
A small trench dug around the tree will give the water a chance to soak in instead of run-off.
- Use a timer with your sprinkler
A forgotten sprinkler can waste over 1000 litres per hour. A timer will allow you to place as much water as is needed without the threat of wastage.
- Toughen up the plants
Too many plants are pampered to the point where they are so dependent on you for water they do not go out of their way to find any themselves. Wait until the soil dries out before watering and use a plant such as bamboo as an indicator - when the leaves start to droop, then water.
- Let the lawn go brown
A lawn uses more water per square metre than any other area in your garden. While your lawn may go brown if not watered during the summer, as soon as the Autumn rain comes the transformation to green will be dramatic.
- If you want a green lawn on a water budget
- Toughen the lawn with only two waterings a week.
- Give it a feed (but do not over fertilize).
- Aerate the soil.
- Do not mow less than 2 cm.
- Water the roots not the leaves
Contrary to popular belief, watering the leaves of trees and shrubs is not beneficial. It just increases water loss through evaporation. In fact, in some circumstances water on leaves on hot, sunny days can damage them.
- Hoses are not a toy
If your children run around the garden squirting each other with water, it can waste over 1000 litres every hour!
- Use a swimming pool cover
Not only will it keep children, leaves and dirt out of the pool but it will keep the heat in and reduce evaporation.
- Don't water the paths
Design the sprinklers to water the garden and not the concrete. If you want clean paths, use a broom.
- Use a trigger nozzle
This means that you are in control and water is not wasted when moving the hose around. Remember to turn off the tap when finished in case the hose springs a leak.
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Water saving resources
For more handy water saving tips download:
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