Reduce Your Home's Water Consumption

Reducing household water usage has big-time benefits for both homeowners and for the environment: reducing strain on local water resources, cutting demand on wastewater treatment facilities, and lowering both water and sewage utility bills, to name a few. Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, we’ve put together a collection of water-saving tips and products that can help you save money and reduce your environmental footprint.

Best of all, these don’t require major sacrifices or lifestyle changes, they’re just adjustments that make a big difference – sort of the water conservation equivalent of “working smart instead of working hard”.

Basic Maintenance

Small Leaks Can Waste Huge Amouts Of Water

Check your fixtures and pipes. Give your household plumbing a good look. Do you see any leaks, even just tiny drips when a faucet is turned on? All those drops add up. A leaky faucet washer can waste tens of gallons of water per day, so why pay for all that water you aren’t using? Plus, by sealing the leak, you’ll avoid the maintenance nightmare of repairing water damage if the little drip turns into a raging flow.

Check your meter. Take a look at your water meter before you leave home to run your errands, then check it a couple hours later when you return (and you know there has been no water use.) If you see any change on the meter, there’s a leak somewhere. Find it and fix it.

Next Stop: The Kitchen

Reuse kitchen water. Instead of wasting it down the drain, use a pail to collect the water you use for rinsing vegetables or cooking foods like pasta or potatoes. The added nutrients make it great for watering a garden.

Don’t let the water run… and run… Of course, this is good advice in the bathroom too, but it’s especially easy to waste water in the kitchen. Make the effort to turn off the faucet when you don’t need it, even for a couple seconds – the water savings will add up quickly. A faucet pedal makes it even easier to regulate water use when your hands are full. One of our favorites is the Pedal Works Hands-Free Faucet Controller ($349 at Amazon)

Pedal Works Hands-Free Faucet Controller

Use the dishwasher. This is an indulgence you can feel good about. A modern, energy-star rated dishwasher loaded to capacity will use less water and energy than hand washing in the sink. And you can generally skip the pre-rinse, further reducing water use.

Bosch SHX68E Evolution 800 Plus Dishwasher

Bosch is an industry leader when it comes to efficient dishwashers. The Bosch SHX68E Evolution 800 Plus is extraordinarily energy efficient, and uses just 1.56 gallons of water per cycle. Fair enough, this is the Rolls Royce of dishwashers ($1,732.56 at Amazon) but all major manufacturers now offer their own energy star models.

If you must wash by hand, don’t let the water run constantly. Fill the sink with soapy water, wash the dishes, then refill with rinse water.

Bathrooms

Sorry, baths. Despite the very name of the room, baths are a killer when it comes to household water conservation. Showers use a fraction of the water compared to baths, so avoid the full-on tub soaking whenever possible.

Go low-flow. New low-flow showerheads match the performance of older, wasteful designs, while drastically cutting water consumption. One of the best is the Delta Water Amplifying Low-Flow Showerhead ($29.98 at Amazon), which uses just 1.85 gallons per minute in its low-flow mode, yet maintains impressive water pressure for rinsing.

Delta Water Amplifying Low-Flow Showerhead

Shower smart. Unfortunately, it’s easy to get distracted in the shower, what with all the singing and pondering the mysteries of the universe. But try to keep it short – reducing a shower by just two minutes can easily save 100 gallons of water each month.

A nifty little gadget to help you avoid wasting water by being aware of how much you’re using is the Water Pebble, designed by Paul Priestman. The Water Pebble is placed in a sink or shower, and uses green, yellow, and red indicator lights to give a quick visual reference of how much water is being used. Learn more at the Priestman Goode Design website.

The Water Pebble

And While We’re Talking Bathrooms… Low-flow toilets are good, but toilets with a dual-flush option are even better. One of the best is the Caroma Caravelle ($369 at Amazon) which performs just as well as many older high-flow designs but uses only 0.8 gallons per flush for liquids, or 1.6 gallons for solids – which can translate into annual utility savings of $100 in water-restricted areas.

Caroma Caravelle Dual-Flush Toilet

Finally, don’t use the toilet as a trash can. Even with a low-flow design, flushing a tissue or a cigarette butt is an unnecessary waste of water.

Bring The Rain Indoors

OXO Good Grips Pour & Store Watering Can

Rainwater is great for watering indoor plants. It’s free, and it’s actually better for your plants than using municipal water from the faucet. Rainwater contains no chlorine, and its ambient temperature is easier for plants to tolerate than cold tap water. The OXO Good Grips Pour & Store watering can ($15.50 at Amazon) is great for indoor use, thanks to its ergonomic design and compact folding spout.

Do you have other suggestions for simple ways to cut household water consumption? Leave a comment below and let us know!

In 2004, MetaEfficient.com pre-reviewed the AeroGrow aeroponics growing system. That was before the system was released. A couple of years ago, you couldn’t cut on your TV without seeing an ad for AeroGrow indoor gardening systems. It isn’t as ubiquitously advertised now, but it hasn’t disappeared from the market. In fact, five years after its initial release, there are several AeroGrow systems for consumers to choose from. Now that the AeroGrow system has been tried and tested, how has it fared?

The AeroGarden 6 with Gourmet Herb Seed Kit , available from Amazon.com in three spiffy colors (white, silver, and black) for $132.39, “lets you grow abundant herbs, greens, or vegetables for your family 365 days a year in the comfort of your kitchen. No gardening experience or even dirt is necessary,” according to the product description.

One of the big draws of the AeroGrow products is that they use a dirt-free means of growing herbs, vegetables like lettuce and tomatoes, and flowers. Aeroponics systems are like hydroponics systems, but the primary growing medium is air instead of water. Another advantage of the system is that it is compact and self-contained; it seems ideally suited for people with small yards, or no yard at all, who still want the advantages of a kitchen garden. Because the AeroGrow products are self-contained, including providing light for whatever the owner wishes to grow, the AeroGarden 6 and its sister products can be used anywhere, year-round, without access to windows that traditional indoor gardens require. AeroGrow lets you take windowsill gardening away from the windowsill, and thus offers a convenience and efficiency to would-be gardeners that traditional methods do not allow for.

Seeds and nutrients are provided in pre-packed pods, included when you buy the AeroGarden 6; plug the seed pods into the system and watch it grow. You provide the water for your pod-plants — made easier by an alarm system integrated into the AeroGrow system that alerts you if your plants need water or nutrients. AeroGrow has provided a foolproof means for indoor gardeners to grow vegetables, fruit, and herbs with minimal fuss and no muss at all.

The AeroGarden 6 differs from the original AeroGarden system in that it contains space for six plant pods instead of seven, which allows more room for your plants to spread out and get comfortable. Setting up the system is reasonably simple, and getting down to the business of growing is easy since everything you need to grow is provided. While the product is advertised as being quiet, its water pump actually makes quite a bit of noise, more even than a fish tank. The light is also quite bright. You will want to take these factors into consideration when you are setting up your AeroGarden. Perhaps the bedroom isn’t the best place to keep your AeroGarden 6. The noise and the light seem to be the only faults of the system, though. It works exactly as advertised, handily growing herbs (or whatever pods you’ve installed in the system) with no hassle and very little tending at all. The nutrients provided with the system seem to give the plants a little boost that results in surprisingly fast-growing herbs.

If you have limited space, you might try the AeroGarden Space-Saver 6 with Gourmet Herb Seed Kit, which provides six spaces for seed pods in a more compact form with a slightly smaller footprint than the AeroGarden 6. This system comes in white, black, silver, and black with stainless steel accents, and sells for $149.95. It, too, comes with all you need to start growing, including seed pods and nutrients, as well as light bulbs. Again, the growing system seems virtually foolproof, as plants sprout and thrive with little effort on the gardener’s part. This system, too, though, is quite noisy and bright. For people with an out-of-the-way place to put the system, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue, since it is so self-contained. But if your space is limited, and you have nowhere to put the system but in an area where you’re likely to spend a lot of time, the biggest across-the-board complaint about the system is how much noise the pump makes and how bright the light is. You can cut off the light, but there is no mechanism for turning off the pump.

The AeroGarden 2411-00B AeroGarden Deluxe with Master Gardener Deluxe Kit, available in black from Amazon.com for $216.68, has considerably more bells and whistles than the AeroGarden 6 and the AeroGarden Space-Saver 6. While you can buy other pod packs for various of the other AeroGrow systems, so that you’re not confined to growing the included herbs in your AeroGarden, the AeroGarden Deluxe comes with an upgraded light system, a trellis system for larger plants, an attachment that allows you to grow full-sized vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers, and a full year’s supply of Grow Pods and the nutrients. You should note that while this system will accommodate plants beyond herbs and flowers, the seeds are NOT included with this system.

The AeroGarden Deluxe is, like its smaller siblings, attractive and easy to set up. The pump again loses points for noisiness, and the three-bulb light system (the others have two bulbs) means the light on this model is brighter. But this system is as self-contained as the others, and performs as well; plants germinate and grow quickly, and there is a high success rate in the plants that grow with this system that isn’t present in traditional gardening. The fact that with the deluxe system, a gardener can grow fruiting vegetables, rather than just smaller plants like herbs, is a big bonus, and seems to make it worth the price.

For a slightly lower price point, you can get the AeroGarden Pro 200 with Master Gardener 1-Season Kit and Gourmet Herb Seed Kit . It has fewer bells and whistles than the AeroGarden Deluxe – no trellis, for example – but still has the upgraded light system and more advanced features than the less expensive, more basic AeroGarden models. This model, like the AeroGarden Deluxe, comes with the Master Gardener 1-Season Kit, which enables you to grow your own seeds rather than relying on the proprietary seed pods that the other systems use. And the AeroGarden Pro 200 comes with herb seeds. This model has space for seven pods, rather than the six in the other systems. There are fewer complaints about a loud pump with the AeroGarden Pro 200, but the lights are quite bright on this system, as well as the others. The growing results, however, are as unmistakably foolproof and efficient with the AeroGarden Pro 200 as with the other AeroGarden products.

Though the grow bulbs , nutrient tablets , and seed kits for the various AeroGarden systems are proprietary, they are relatively inexpensive and easily available. And because of the happiness of many of AeroGarden’s customers with the product’s ease and efficiency in providing an effective small garden even for those without the resources to grow a traditional garden, it seems unlikely that the company will evaporate any time soon – so if you buy an AeroGarden system, you will probably have no problem at all stocking up later on refills to keep your system growing. For people with smaller budgets or smaller spaces, smaller AeroGarden systems are available. If, on the other hand, you want to upgrade a larger system, upgrade kits are available to let you do just that.

The consensus on AeroGarden systems is that they work well, and that if you buy a system, you will be assured of low-maintenance garden goodies, in a small space and with a minimum of effort. While the systems are not flawless – the bright lights and the loud pump being the most consistent complaints – they do offer, for people who can overlook those faults, a means of growing kitchen herbs and vegetables (and flowers, too) year-round, indoors. The produce from the various systems is consistently as the manufacturer advertises, and the systems have received consistently positive reviews in the five years since AeroGarden came onto the market. That this high-performing gardening system comes in a range of prices and with options to suit the varying needs of indoor gardeners is an excellent bonus.

The range of AeroGarden products seems to be a cost-effective and highly efficient way for the would-be gardener to maintain a practical and productive kitchen garden indoors.

It’s important to keep indoor humidity at an optimum level (45 to 65 percent). Dry air in the winter  is one the main causes of sinus infections and sore throats. You can use a mechanical humidifier to add moisture to the air, but these devices require constant cleaning to prevent the growth of microorganisms.

An easier way to add humidity to a room, is to put a few areca palms in it. These palms release copious amounts of water into the air, and remove chemical toxins too. They are consistently rated among the best houseplants for removing all indoor toxins tested. According to B. C. Wolverton, author of How To Grow Fresh Air, a six foot (1.8 m) areca palm transpires approximately 1 quart (1 litre) of water every 24 hours. So if you put three in your bedroom, the palms will be release three quarts of water per day — not bad!

Here’s a way to reuse virtually any soda or water bottle with a screw-on cap. It’s called the Twist & Spout, and it comes in two varieties. Use the Garden style to create a watering can. Use the Kitchen style to make those two-liter soda bottles easy to handle.

A set of two is available from Perpetual Kid for $5.99.

Growing microgreens is a metaefficient way to have attractive, flavorful greens available for salads and garnishes. Top class restaurants use freshly cut microgreens to liven up their dishes. Microgreens are tiny plants, no more than 8 to 14 days old.

They usually only have their “cotyledon” (first) leaves developed. This also a time when the plants have an optimum flavor and nutrient content. The stem and baby leaves are all that are consumed — unlike sprouts where the roots are also eaten. Usually, the plants are trimmed to inch above root level and allowed to regrow.

Microgreens are usually grown without soil on a water absorbent material like a felt padding or vermiculite. You can also find microgreen growing kits like the Microgreen Growing Kit or the Edible Miniature Garden. A larger scale growing is offered by CropKing.

Some the plants you can grow as microgreens are: Arugula, Mâche, Radicchio, Cress, Bull’s Blood Beets, Mizuna (a Japanese salad green), Basil, Sorrel, Chicory, Chevil, Escarole, Chards, Mustards, Spinach, Kales, Tatsoi and Rapini.

A full list can be found on the SproutPeople web site.

You can buy seeds for microgreens from: Botanikka, SproutPeople, and other vendors listed here.

The most efficient treatment for burns is: aloe vera gel. Nothing in the world heals burns faster and more effectively. There’s no reason why everyone can’t have access to at least one of these plants, since they are easy to grow indoors. To get best results, the gel must be fresh and undiluted.

This plant, the Club Moss (Selaginella Lepidophylla), has been around for 290 million years. It pre-dates the dinosaurs, and survived through their destruction, it also made it through the ice age and continues to thrive to this day in the 21st century. It can dry up and hibernate for as long as 50 years at a time. During this time it will curl up and travel around with the wind like a tumbleweed in search of water.

Once it finds moisture it can fully rejuvenate in one day. This death and resurrection process is then repeated for hundreds of years. It’s native home is Mexico and Texas in desert and semi-desert regions.

The spores of Lycopodiophyta are highly flammable and so have been used in fireworks. You can buy it from Science Surplus for $3.50 or Tower Hobbies for $7.59.

Found via Ecofriend.

The Boston Fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) — it’s the plant that’s the most efficient at removing formaldehyde (the most common indoor air pollutant).

See our post on How To Grow Fresh Air for more information.

It’s great to brighten up a cold winter day by growing plants under lights indoors. This device aims to make indoor growing easier. It has a grow light (a full-spectrum 9-watt fluorescent), and the lamp turns on and off every day, simulating the changing length of days with the passing seasons. The Intelligent Plant Grow Light also has an adjustable neck that stretches to 14 inches tall, a soil moisture sensor that indicates when it’s time to water, and a pebbled base that catches excess water.

Available from: Cool Stuff for about $32.

This curious planter takes the toil out of tomatoes by elevating the planting bed so vines grow downward. The hanging vines need almost no attention as tomatoes ripen in the air (not on the ground) where they won’t rot.

Complementary plants like basil, parsley, rosemary, and peppers can be planted on top, which holds up to 80 lbs. of topsoil. The compact planter can fit in any space with ample sunlight, even condominium balconies. Available from Hammacher.Com for $69.95.

Found via Ecofriend and Coolest Gadgets.