save water begining your shower.

 You can also purchase a low flow shower head, or replace the aerators in the bathroom, kitchen faucets.

It really isnt a whole lot of trouble to purchase a replacement, and it can go a long way.

I'm working on a LEED project and we are buying low flow faucets/toilets to increase water efficiency. I'm a big advocate for it.

Zetreque - very clever idea. Other folks talk about throwing a bucket underneath the cold water flow while it heats up and using that to water plants, etc. but this is definitely similar in its effectiveness and SUPER easy. Great tip.

Great Tip. Here are some more water saving tips: http://www.bewaterwise.com/tips01.html

This is kind of an indirect method - but very effective in the whole "big picture" of water conervation.  Water usage numbers have been developed for raising livestock - beef, per pound, being the worst!  It has been determined that when you factor the water used for the cow, feed, yard, processing, etc that it takes well over 2500 to 5000 gallons PER POUND to get grain-fed factory farm beef to your table!!! (depending on where it is raised...) - less is used for more free range / ranch grazing beef, but still uses alot! 

You don't have to become a vegetarian at all to save water, according to the numbers above - but if you just cut a couple pounds of beef from your YEARLY diet, you will save water comparable to not showering all year!!!   ...fish tacos instead of beef.  Grilled chicken sandwhich instead of a burger... it all adds up.

I see this is an old post so maybe no one's lookin' but  -  don't forget about the recirculation pumps available now.  I have a Chillipepper that recirculates water for my shower.  It pumps until hot water reaches the bathroom sink - nothing down the drain - easiest place to install it - and I have hot water in less than ten seconds.  No wasted water in this house!!!

I set my washing machine to start filling, that gets the water circulating in my house so when I turn the shower on it's immediately hot. All depends on how the house is plumbed though- my bathroom happens to back on to the laundry room :)

A hot water circulating pump like the Chilipepper CP6000 loops the cold water (that would be wasted waiting for hot water to flow) back through the system. It uses approx $2 electricity per year and can save thousands of gallon of water a year. It is available from Florida Eco Products http://www.floridaecoproducts.com/category.sc?categoryId=5 , you can use the coupon code GREENHOME to save an additional $10 off the already sale price of $169.99 . Thank you, Paul - Florida Eco Products 

Ordering an instant hot water system requires some thought and planning - otherwise you may well be pouring more money down the drain.

If the pipe runs are long and or the pipes are not well insulated you will only end up with a method of removing heat (which you paid for) from the tank.

At present my unit is shutoff with a valve closed. I turned off power to the water heater and found that the tank temperature dropped greatly over night with the recirculation being the problem. I am not worried about now as the solar panels take care of it but I certainly have to have things in control by about 1 November.

1. Decide exactly where instant hot water is desired - certainly it is not needed in all areas - this was one of my mistakes.

2. Make sure you can insulate the pipes well - depending on the style of construction it may be easy, hard or in between.

3. Is it practical to install the additional piping run to loop back to the hot water heater - mine was built into a concrete structure so no problem there.

4. Do you want it to be running all the time or is it OK to have a switch and tun it on a few minutes before hot water use. This is what I will end up doing plus limiting the number of faucets the recirculated water goes to.

5. A flow control valve - globe valve type preferably - should be in the line to allow adjustment of the flow.

Other considerations/steps

a. Determine how much flow is needed - length of pipe & volume 

b. Decide how quickly you want hot water - how many seconds you are willing to wait before turning the faucet on 

The pump would be a Wilo, Grundfos or similar - quite a small thing - mine is 30 to 65 watt - 3 step adjustable rpm from 1300 to 2050. Must be rated for hot water useage. 

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Very nice and useful idea to save water. Thanks for sharing such informational stuff. This provides a great help in order to get the intelligent use of shower.

Regards

Saving Water

Quote:

Originally Posted by jtreavis 

We use a product that diverts all our shower gray water outside onto landscape plants and trees. None of our shower water goes down the sewer! It has reduced our water bill because we are not using fresh water to water our landscape. One shower is about 45 gallons of water. We're talking about thousands of gallons of water a year! You can view it at www.MiragePacific.com
 

Whoa! at maximum flow alowed by law (2.5GPM) That isan 18 minute shower! That's pretty ridiculous.  My low flow showerhead (1.4gpm) x 5 minute is a little more reasonable. 7 gallons