Typical water usage?

I'll have to check ours.

We have 2 shower takers and 2 bath takers (who take a bath together, the dirty, wee buggers). 1.6 GPM shower head. We have vintage toilets (1.6 GPF) but I put a brick in each toilet tank to try to reduce the amount of water in the tank (is this a waste of time?).

We have a typical, top loading washer, but it has an adjustable load setting which we use with every load. Probably not as good as a front loader, I'm sure, but we probably save quite bit of water. We also have it set on one rinse cycle instead of two.

We don't leave faucets running while doing dishes, hand washer, tooth brushing, shaving, etc. I'm not sure what our water usage is for the lawn (this year it's quite low because it's been quite wet), but I have the zones adjusted for what makes sense for that area and I never let the system run if it has rained recently. Our backyard if filled with trees so the grass doesn't need a lot to do fine (we have, mostly, KY Bluegrass, idiotic I know). I'm thinking about Xeriscaping the front yard to: a.) dramatically reduce the amount of water we use. b.) save on time maintaining the lawn. c.) reduce the amount of weed killer I have to apply to keep crab grass and various broadleaf weeds in check.

We'll eventually replace the washer with a front loader. I'm going to buy a new dish washer very soon and energy star will be criterion for sure. Cost most also play a key role right now, sadly.

I'm interested to hear what others have to say on the subject, esp the desert rats (not the WW2 blokes).

 

My house has an Energy Star dishwasher, washing machine, etc. Minimum 2 adults, sometimes 3 adults depending on how long my Aunt visits

Dishwasher every day, twice a day on the weekends. Washing machine load every day. Numerous showers, etc.

My water meter reads in cubic metres. Fall, winter, spring, I average 18-22 m3 a month, or about 4,700-5,800 US gals a month. In summer, depending on how much I have to water the lawn, 35-60 m3 a month, or 9,200-15,800 US gals a month

Compared to my neighbors, my water consumption is 15-25% lower. Water here is pretty cheap, I only get billed every 3 months. The winter bill is usually around $55 for 3 months, the summer bill around $200 for 3 months

 

Live in Socal. Don't know how much we use, but with 3 adults, one toddler we pay about $15-25/month, summer months $35-50/month.

 

2 Adults in an 1150sq.ft. apartment = 3670ga/mo ($55.11/mo).
Once my roomate moves out I expect the water use to be cut nearly in half because she does soooo much laundry. lol Iguess i'm partially to blame for being sick and haviong to use the bathroom so much.

 

We averaged 2066 gallons per month from January to March. The garden was planted in April along with some ground cover in the front yard. That jumped our usage to 3050 for April and ??? for May. (City had to come out and replace the meter)

Our main usages are 1 shower per day and the toilets. (We do go by the "If it's yellow..... rule so that cuts down on flushes.)

Other than that we do about 3-4 loads of dishes per week and 3-4 loads of laundry. The garden has been watered about every 3 days and is well mulched to retain water. We put down about an inch of water per watering.

 

I'm single and live alone. I do have a yard, but it's not big, and I don't water it very often. I do shower every day, but laundry and dishes are only done maybe once a week.

I think I'm averaging around 1400 gallon per month. I'm pretty sure less than 2k. If I do water the lawn a lot, that can easily go up to 4 or 5k.

 

In my water district, residential customers average 84 CCF per year. (CCF = 100 cubic feet = 748 gallons)

With the old water hog toilets, dishwasher and clothes washer, my household (2 adults) averaged 66 CCF/year (4100 gal/month). With my upgrade three years ago to 1.6 gpf toilets, EnergyStar dishwasher and frontloader clothes washer, two rain barrels for hand watering, and consistent use of drip irrigation instead of sprinklers in the gardens, usage has fallen to 31 - 37 CCF/year (1930 to 2300 gal/month), depending on how much we travel.

The lawn is not watered. Any dryland farmer knows that grass is supposed to go dormant in the summer.

If any household member has that middle-aged problem that the TV pharma ads call 'bladder urges', then it is imperative that any old water hog 3.5 or 5 gpf toilets be replaced. The common cheap replacement flappers and mechanisms push these hogs to even higher levels of wastage than the original parts.

 

In winter when we don't irrigate, we use about 100 gallons per day (4CCF/month) for the two of us. I'd like to get that down to what JSH has above. What we've done so far:
- converted toilet in Master BR (most used toilet) to Australian Caroma toilet (dual-flush 1.6 or 0.8 GPF). Hall bath toilet is next when we remodel
- We also follow 'if it's yellow...'
- We capture warm-up water from showers and use in the garden
- We also capture hand-washing and other grey water in sinks and use in the garden
- Low-flow shower heads. Also do 'military' style (rinse-turn water off- soap up- rinse)
- Although I do collect some rainwater in garbage cans in winter, it is quickly used. I would like to set up a bigger system for storing.

The thing we need to work on is our garden. We have a relatively big lawn in the back. I think I'm going to take out half of it next year and sow red clover in the other half to reduce it's water requirement. Right now I water it just to keep it from 'burning' (esp. the roots), but it is slowly turning golden. I also don't skimp on the veggie garden, but do amend the soil well and use mulch. Summer usage is much higher, probably 15-18 CCF/month, and I want to knock that down.

Thanks for posting this thread. I've been wondering about relative usages.

BTW, our property is a typical suburban property, about 1/4 to 1/3 acre in size.

 

The brick was free, mate. I found it in the back garden. Good to know about the volume calc. Thanks for that info.

 

Ours is metered in Cubic Ft... and we are billed every two months. Three adults, one of which only comes home to shower (!) (That's just one cubic foot, btw... not 100 cubic foot. Once cubic foot contains 7.5 gallons of water, according to wikipedia)

In the previous two months, we used 730 CF. Our usage a year ago (when there was just the two of us...) was about 600 CF for two months. (730 CF = 5475 / 56 days = 98 gallons per day)

I do have a garden this year, and am watering my raised beds every few days... and we have four new trees I'm keeping alive by watering them until they get well established (I lost the little japanese maple by not watering it enough )

I do have a dishwasher -- it runs about 4 times a week. I do three or four loads of laundry a week, in a front-loading washer. We tend to shower more than bathe.

Does this help?

 

Well, whaddaya know... reading Rae Vynn's thread, I just realized that my 'monthly' winter usage of 4 CCF is actually a TWO month usage! That puts us at 50 gal per day with two people, or 25 gal per person during winter. OK, I feel much better now. Same with the other usage of 15-18 CCF in summer... that is two months.

Update on my hall toilet... funny, right after I wrote my post above, the bar off the handle that lifts the flapper broke. When I went to ACE Hardware to price replacement parts, it was not that much more expensive to just buy the kit that converts the toilet to a dual flusher. And Voila! Now we have two dual-flushers in the house.

 

Less than 2000 gal. every 3 months. 2 adults. No washer/dryer. And feet of rain this spring. Sump pumped 500 gal + a day for most of spring.

 

Not a clue for me. Water is one thing we have in spades. In this area, the only issue relating to water is the cost of pumping. We have amply fresh water, and after use it recycles right back into the same aquifer.

I have the figures here somewhere - let me check. Ah, there it is: we have 5,000 cubic miles of drinking water right outside our house, and that's just surface water. There is more if you consider what's down in the ground.

Tom

 

Wow! ~22 gallons per day total for the household. That's a little more than 4 buckets of water per day... total! (5 gal buckets).

 

If you think about it, you would end up using more water during shower days so on some days you would use less than 22ga. lol