Home water audit: how much water do you use?

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Cindy Parker

To determine what methods will be most beneficial for reducing your household water consumption, it’s fundamental to understand how much you use on a daily basis. Also, you have to eliminate the possibility of any leaks – and to be sure your water meter is working properly.

While reviewing information for this column, I found that statistics for average household water use range between 50 to 100 gallons per day per person. That’s a pretty big variation. Even if you consider something close to 70 gallons per person per day, a family of four would be over 8000 gallons per month. For many people with wells and septic systems, this may not be an issue. For folks on municipal water and sewer systems, every drop adds up on the water bill.

Start by checking the information on your water bill. It may provide total consumption in gallons or in cubic feet. If the information is provided in cubic feet, you can multiply the total cubic feet by 7.48 to achieve the total gallons. If you analyze the information and determine that you are using 100 gallons a day or more per person – you really should consider why you need that much water, or consider growing gills and finding a nice lake.

Look at your water meter. With all water consuming devices turned off inside the house, check the reading on the meter. (Remember ice makers and humidifiers.) Wait for one hour, then check the meter reading again. If there is a difference in the numbers, water is flowing somewhere. Although it can be possible for leaks to occur between the meter and the house, the leaks are usually somewhere in the house.

Typical indoor daily water use data indicate the following averages for percent of household total use:
Toilets                       28 percent
Washing Machines    22 percent
Showers                    17 percent
Faucets                     17 percent
Leaks                         12 percent
Dishwasher                 2 percent
Baths                           2 percent

By looking at how you use water, you may be able to reduce consumption by 30-40 percent on some of the biggest water using fixtures. Understanding your water use habits is the first part of conducting a home water audit.

Toilets
Older toilets can use 3 to 5 gallons per flush. New toilets are regulated at 1.6 gallons per flush. When “low flow” toilets were first introduced, the flush technology was not as good as the units currently available. People were smuggling toilets from Canada and reworking old toilets to keep up the high flush capacity. Low flow toilets from the early 1990s were not popular or especially efficient because multiple flushes had to be made to accomplish the job. Newer low flow toilets work much better and can save a lot on water consumption.

Washing Machines
Top load washers use about 40 gallons of water per load. Front load washers use about half that amount. If you are washing partial loads, you are not only using water, you are using extra electrical energy for one of the biggest motors in the typical house. Consider the energy and water savings for an energy efficient washer if your current machine is more than 10 years old. Also, remember to check the rebates available from the electric company.

Faucets and Showers
If you haven’t made any changes to faucets or shower heads in the past 10 years, you should notice a big reduction in water consumption when you change these fixtures. Older shower heads and faucets allowed flow rates of 5 to 8 gallons per minute (gpm). The newer units are rated at about 2.2 gpm. “Aeration” assisted, these devices will still produce flows at pressures that are adequate to accomplish the task. To determine if your faucets or showers are low flow, turn the water to full volume and fill a container. Multiply the volume by the time to figure out the flow rate in gallons per minute.

Dishwashers
Use your dishwasher when it is full. In general, dishwashers use less water than washing dishes by hand. Do not pre-wash dishes before letting the dishwasher do the job.

Leaks
The most common culprit for household water leaks is the toilet. A leaking toilet can account for up to 200 gallons per day! Even at half that rate, a leaking toilet can add thousands of gallons to your monthly total water use and billing. Not all leaking toilets are recognizable, but it is easy to conduct a toilet leak test. Add a small amount of food coloring (or colored powdered drink mix) to the tank on the back of the toilet. Do not flush. Check the water in the bowl under the toilet seat. There should be no color to the water. Check again in an hour or two – again, there should be no color to the water in the bowl. If the water in the bowl becomes colored, the toilet is leaking.

Water usage outside the house is another category to analyze in determining how to reduce consumption. For a Michigan February, however, we’ll consider that solid topic for another day, maybe in July.