Ways to Save Water

The 4th in a series of events held at South Notts College in Ruddington focused on saving water in the home. Here is a short summary of the talks, and some useful facts are listed below. It’s a big topic so just a small selection included here.

Tina Holt gave an overview. In summary, water-saving habits really make a huge difference in the amount of water consumed in the home. Hot water has a much higher carbon footprint than cold water (about 5 times higher), so cut your heating bills and save carbon by insulating taps and pipes and using hot water carefully.

David Roe explained his home-made rainwater harvesting system, which supplies water to toilets, washing machine and dishwasher. To buy such a system new would be very expensive and is not as eco-friendly as it seems. However, using reused tanks and some basic pipework, this home-made approach has a very low carbon footprint.

Ian Mumford showed how to avoid paying the surface drainage charge by re-directing all the water from his roof into water-butts, and from there via pipes across his garden. There would be a big environmental benefit if every house with a garden could do this, because after heavy rain, water falling on the house and driveway normally flows rapidly into the drains and rivers and can cause flooding. However, when this water is diverted into the garden, instead of adding to the flooding problem, it feeds the local soil and sub-soil. From here it can make its way gradually into rivers, lakes and groundwater – which are all sources of our mains water supply.

Gil Shalom shared 10 years’ experience of saving water in a retrofit eco-home. Surprisingly, simple water saving habits and low flush toilets were his top tips, along with shorter showers.

Watch out – many types of low flush toilets leak from the cistern into the loo and waste huge amounts of water. If you are looking for a leak-free low flush loo, try the ES4 (a 4 litre single flush available from the Green Building Store).

If you are careful with water, being on a water meter may be cheaper than the rate-based water bill. (Try to estimate your water use accurately for a week and estimate your likely bill from the pricing information on the Severn Trent website). Or instead, try this simple water calculator: http://www.ccwater.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.388 All you need to do is download the excel document and go to the “Severn Trent” tab.