Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Right, they've just fitted a water meter: tips please!

18 replies

LaTristesse · 25/05/2012 14:23

For saving water basically! I'm all of a sudden immensely conscious of how much we waste, despite already sharing baths and having a brick in the cistern. Rinsing things off seems a waste, as does ditching the water from the condenser dryer. Tips and ideas please; we're a 4 person household, with 2 small children...

OP posts:
MegBusset · 25/05/2012 14:33

Shower instead of bath. Switch off the shower while you wash yourself and just use it for a quick rinse.
Get a water butt and use rainwater to water the plants
Don't use dishwasher, sprinkler, hosepipe etc
When kids wash their hands, just get them to put a bit of water in the sink and use that rather than leave taps running
Shortest cycle on washing machine and only do full loads

Can you tell I've had a water meter for a year Grin

Lizcat · 25/05/2012 15:51

When you change your washing machine by the biggest drum size avaliable. I changed from a 5kg drum to an 8kg drum and it cut our water bill by a third. Washing up in the sink does save water if you leave it all till there is a dishwasher's worth. If you compare using the dishwasher to washing up after each meal for a family of four the dishwasher uses less water.

LaTristesse · 25/05/2012 15:58

Luckily (or unluckily as I've always found it), I don't have a shower or a dishwasher so not much choice as to how we do those things! We do already have an 8kg washing machine so good to know that's going to help... Thanks for the replies...

OP posts:
vonnyh · 25/05/2012 17:28

Dishwashers use less water than washing up by hand apparently.

PigletJohn · 25/05/2012 17:50

A bath will use about a hundred litres of water, a shower will use a lot less unless you have a Drencher head, or stay under until you are pink and wrinkly. It's worth running the shower into a bucket and timing it, to see how many litres per minute it delivers.

Washing machines, especially older ones, use quite a lot. Try to amass a load of any sort rather than running daily. I've never weighed a load of washing but if you do you can see how much a full load is.

A modern dishwasher uses about as much as a washing-up bowl, to clean and rinse more plates and utensils, more hygenically, than by hand. E.g. 13 litres

MegBusset · 25/05/2012 18:53

Our dishwasher uses 18 litres per cycle so it depends on model, you should be able to look it up. I don't rinse after washing up.

Also, don't rinse veg under a running tap - run a bowl of water to do it in.

Virgil · 25/05/2012 18:55

Use used bath water to flush the toilet. I know it sounds weird but it works and saves lots of water. Just keep a kids beach bucket in the cupboard

Virgil · 25/05/2012 18:56

And keep a jug of water in the fridge so that you don't run the tap until the water gets cold enough to drink

LaTristesse · 25/05/2012 19:01

Lovely, keep 'em coming...!

Virgil, how do you do the bath/loo thing? Being very dim here, but do you leave the bath full and take a bucket full out each time you need to flush? And do you chuck the bucket load down the loo or empty it into the cistern?

OP posts:
Virgil · 25/05/2012 19:04

I don't do it all the time because I don't like to leave water in the bath with the Dcs around but PIL do it. Literally leave the bath water in, dunk in a bucket and pour straight into the loo x 2. Just the same as flushing.

DarrowbyEightFive · 25/05/2012 19:07

We've always had a water meter, as they are common here in Germany. However, in addition to the question of saving money, it's drilled into kids about the importance of saving water for the sake of the environment. Some of the things we do:

Don't use running water for washing hands or brushing teeth. Put up a sign or sticker reminding the kids to turn the tap off.

Always shower instead of bath, but then take a short shower at least once a day. Extremists switch off the shower while shampooing their hair and only switch it back on to rinse out the suds, but that's too much for me - I keep the shower running throughout - it's still less water than if I had taken a bath. We trained the DC to use a shower at a relatively young age - when they were 5 or 6.

Use the economy setting on the dishwasher - ours only takes 30 mins instead of 90 and gets the plates just as clean. Make sure the dishwasher is always stacked full before switching on (yes I'm talking to you DH!).

Get a water butt for rainwater in the garden and use that for watering plants (you can attach it to a pump to create a hosepipe effect). In fact, in 1976 there was a huge drought and a hosepipe ban all summer, and my mum used the dirty dishwater on our plants - they survived fine.

Be a lot more conscientious about deciding what goes in the washing basket, and train DC to do so too (admittedly this hasn't really gone to plan, and DD2 throws stuff in her basket willy-nilly after it's been worn for a few hours). Do you really need to change all your clothes every day, or can some things go two days? How often do you change your sheets and duvet covers? We hang ours out of the window to air frequently and thus only wash them every two weeks. If you really plan this well you can reduce your washing by a load a week.Our machine also has an economy setting, which is worth using if the clothes aren't actually filthy. And we NEVER wash stuff higher than 60 degrees.

All the best with it - meter watching can be compulsive stuff.

Virgil · 25/05/2012 19:07

They also use bath water for watering house plants as long as its not too soapy

DaPrincessBride · 25/05/2012 19:09

We have the yellow / mellow, brown / down rule here Blush not when we have guests, you understand, but it's just us!

Virgil · 25/05/2012 19:09

And they mainly have showers but keep the plug in to keep the water in the bath - they have a shower over a bath rather than a separate cubicle.

smalltown · 25/05/2012 19:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LaTristesse · 25/05/2012 19:21

Very intrigued as to what a loo hippo is!

OP posts:
smalltown · 25/05/2012 20:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PigletJohn · 25/05/2012 23:26

modern loos have smaller cisterns so economical flows and do not need a hippo. A brick is more likely to crack something. You can also get a dual-flush (big or small) which is quite popular but not especially reliable, especially the ones with a button on top of the cistern lid.

A small cistern with a flapper valve instead of a syphon flush gives a good powerful flush and is easier to adjust. You can also fit it to a large old cistern and adjust the water level to use a bit less. Older loos tend not to flush correctly if you are mean with the water, so users end up flushing twice (or more)

Try changing to a flapper next time you have a worn-out syphon (i.e. you have to jerk the handle a couple of times to make it flush). not very expensive if you can DIY.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page