Baby Steps And Giant Leaps

The first idea I had to go green and save money didn't cost me anything. It was simply a change in behavior.

The average showerhead puts out 2.5 to 3 gallons of water a minute. So a ten-minute shower washes 25 to 30 gallons of water down the drain, water that has to be heated. A free solution: The navy shower. On boats in the navy there is a finite amount of fresh water and most of that is used for drinking. So to save water they turn the water on get wet, shut the water off, lather up their hair and body, and then rinse off. Doing the same thing, I can get a shower only running the water for 90 seconds, or at the high end, 4.5 gallons of water. That saves me about 9500 gallons of water a year. Remember this is only from one person. And all of that water that is saved is energy saved on not heating it. It costs nothing and you can start doing it the next time you take a shower. If only one person in each household showers in this fashion the savings could be tremendous over the course of a year.

As an added bonus: put a bucket under the spigot and catch the water that runs out while you wait for it to warm up. You can use this water to flush the toilet or water some ornamental plants around the house (plants you are not going to eat).

A second bonus, for me anyway, was that I was showering much faster (who wants to stand there and be cold when the water is off). Which gives me more time in the day to do other things.

After doing this for a few months we took the savings and bought a low flow showerhead (Waterpik EcoFlow® Hand Held Shower Head). Now even when we aren't doing a navy shower we can still save water.

Give it a go. It is very easy to adapt.