Last week Raleigh mayor Charles Meeker drew some flak for putting forth the goal for everyone to limit themselves to using only 25 gallons of water a day, per person. The mayor’s own water bills showed his household consumption to be around 33 gallons per person per day.
Being of the curious mind, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and see just how MT.Net was measuring up against this goal. Last Monday evening, I carted a flashlight and screwdriver out to the meter and noted the usage. The meter displays water use in cubic feet, and mine read 7,936.7. One cubic foot of water equals 7.48 gallons for those keeping score at home.
Last night I re-read the meter after exactly one week of cooking, showering, laundry for four, dish washing, kids’ baths, toilet flushing and the like. The results stunned me. The meter read 7,976.7 cu. ft, which means we used exactly 40 cubic feet this week or 299 gallons (40 x 7.48). We’re a family of four and the last time I checked there are 7 days in a week, so that makes 299 gallons divided by 4 times 7, which comes out to 10.7 gallons per person per day! That’s well below the mayor’s 25 gallons per person proposal. You could even consider Kelly and I as the primary water users and halve the people in the equation and we would still be below 25 gallons per person per day!
I knew we were saving water but I was astounded at just how much, and all without much real effort. We’ve continued the every-other-day baths for the kids but we’ve cut down on the water in the tub and the second bath uses the water of the first. Kelly and I take quick showers and turn off the water when we don’t need it. We stopped flushing the toilets so often (the biggest waste of water) and adopted the “let it mellow” philosophy. When we do flush, we use bathwater or rainwater for the job. I think the biggest, easiest change we made is not flushing during nighttime bathroom breaks. With that cut out, we’re saving 6-8 gallons and not waking everyone else up with noisy flushing.
So, for all you people whose complained about 25 gallons a day, I challenge you: how much water could you be saving?