As climate models continue to predict less rainfall and more droughts throughout the country, Aotearoa New Zealand needs to get used to surviving with less water.
No matter what type of space you live in, there are many simple ways to reduce water usage in your home that will cut down your water bill and ensure we preserve this precious resource.
Fix your leaks and drips
Start by checking the basics. Find your water meter; it will be close to your property, likely beside a footpath. If you’re unsure if the meter is yours, turn the tap of the water meter off, then check if you can still run water in your home. If no water flows, it’s yours!
Once you’ve established where your water meter is, it’s time to check for leaks. Find a space in your calendar when no one will be home for at least 5 hours (the longer the better). Take a picture of the water meter before you leave. When you return, if that number is the same you know that there are no leaks. If the number has changed, you have a leak! Investigate each toilet and tap to see if you can hear them running or hire a plumber to find the leak for you and fix it.
Some areas around Aotearoa New Zealand are lucky to have councils or community-focused groups who offer free water checks. Like EcoMatters in Auckland and Waterline in Tauranga. A free water check generally includes personalised water-saving ideas, identifying your water meter, checking the flow rate of your shower heads and mixer taps, and sometimes even providing you with free water-saving products if they find yours are inefficient.
Invest in water-efficient fittings
Taps and shower heads differ in efficiency; they let out different amounts of water and air. A water-efficient shower head should run at less than nine litres per minute.
To test your own shower head, turn it on for 15 seconds (capture the water in a bucket to reuse), measure how much water is expelled in that time, and times that number by four to calculate your shower head’s per minute rating.
Kitchen taps should ideally have a flow rate of 4-6 litres per minute. Again, test your taps to ensure they have appropriate flow rates.
Thankfully, water-efficient fittings don’t mean you have to give up high-pressure showers. Our shower is famous for having great pressure and it has a flow rate of nine litres per minute!
Change your behaviour
Updating your appliances and resolving all leaks is a great start to water conservation, but the ongoing water saving comes with a change in habits.
- Shorten your showers: Under three minutes is best. Find your favourite three-minute song or use a timer.
- Put a bucket in your shower: Gather excess water that falls around you so you can use it to flush the toilet or water plants.
- Wash your dishes in a bucket: This trick doesn’t work with every sink and sometimes it gets too tedious, but in the summer it’s a brilliant way to save a lot of water.
- Do not wash your clothes simply because they were worn once: Spot-wash marks and stains and only put a garment in the washing basket if it’s actually dirty or smelly.
- Turn off the tap: When you are brushing your teeth, washing your hair, shaving, or washing your hands, don’t leave water running.
Improve your watering practices
During most summers we can expect garden watering bans to become more frequent. But instead of giving up on keeping your garden gorgeous or planting anything at all, implement smart watering practices.
Put mulch on your garden to retain more moisture and consider plants that are drought-hardy.
If you use an environmentally friendly laundry detergent that is safe for greywater systems, divert the wastewater from your laundry load into a large barrel to water the garden with.
Monitor your water usage
Finally, after you’ve stopped all leaks, checked the efficiency of your taps, updated any water-guzzling fittings, changed your habits, and improved your watering practices, keep the conversation going.
Monitoring your water usage and communicating your water bill statistics with everyone in the family is a great way to hold everyone accountable for their water usage.
If you’re not regularly talking about your water use and making goals as a household, it’s likely that one or more of you will forget your water conservation goals and revert to old habits.
Knowledge is power. Schedule a monthly meeting with other household members to discuss your water bill. If you want to monitor your water use more closely, consider investing in a water monitoring device like a Shower Canary.
Water is a finite resource that we need to be more savvy about saving.
It doesn’t take long for water conservation habits to become just as normal as brushing your teeth twice a day. Implementing small habits like “if it’s brown, flush it down, if it’s yellow, let it mellow” will ensure you can use your water for more critical purposes like drinking, washing, and cooking.
Kate Hall is one of the Herald’s lifestyle contributors. Based in Auckland, she covers sustainable and conscious living and ethical consumerism. Recently she’s helpfully explained how to dispose of expired batteries, ways to compost in an apartment and shared some food storage tips to save money (and food).
