How to BEAT a water BAN
THE hot weather may well have left the UK basking in the sun, but it’s also left us parched. Weeks of relentlessly high temperatures, an absence of rain and the increase in demand has led to seriously low water levels in reservoirs, rivers and lakes.
So what are the best ways to save water? Believe it or not, it’s the smallest lifestyle tweaks that can make the biggest difference to our supplies.
Here, we bring you the clever watersaving tips and gadgets that will not only help keep your water supply flowing this summer, but can also knock a significant chunk off your water bill, too . . . ForgEt the old water- saving showerheads, which worked by adding air to the stream, resulting in patchy flow. today’s showerheads are far more high-tech.
the most sophisticated is the new £1,077 Nebia, backed by the CEos of Apple and google. It uses up to 70 per cent less water by filtering the stream through a surface that creates millions of tiny droplets.
It is like being caught in waterfall spray, and devotees say it is just as effective as a normal showerhead at washing away soap or shampoo, as well as being gentle on the skin. What’s more, the company claims it’ll pay for itself within two years.
Fancy something cheaper? try the Flowpoint round Shower Head (£19.99, savewatersavemoney.co.uk) which promises to cut a 15-litres-perminute flow rate down to six litres per minute while still providing a lovely, decent spray. WEEKLY WATER SAVING FOR A FAMILY OF FOUR: 315 litres — four baths full. A DISHWASHER will use between 12 and 20 litres of water in every cycle. You can cut your weekly water usage by around 30 per cent, however, by loading your machine more carefully and only switching the dishwasher on when it’s absolutely full.
According to a study, crockery that has had carbohydrates, such as potato, rice and pasta, on it does best if placed in the direct line of the water stream, in the middle of the rack, as it needs lots of spray to come off the plates.
Plates that have had protein, such as cheese, eggs and meat on them do best with a soak in the chemicals that are released at the start of the cycle, so can sit at the edges of the washer.
WATER SAVING: 45 litres — half a bath full. BABIES and toddlers love to splash about in the bath — and now there’s an eco-friendly way to wash them without having to fill the entire length of the bath. the BabyDam (£34.99, babydam.
com) creates an adjustable barrier in most conventional, straightsided baths, so you can fill just one end of the bath with water, using half the water you would have to use otherwise.
WATER SAVING: If you wash your baby three times a week that’s 105 litres — one and a quarter baths full. tHE weekend car wash is a familiar ritual — but thirsty work. Some estimates suggest we use up to 250 litres of water to clean a car with a pressure washer. But now you can clean your car without using any water at all.
Meguiar’s Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere spray (£12.80, halfords.
com) magically whisks away dirt and leaves a glossy shine. An even more lazy option is ArmorAll Express Wash and Wax Wipes (£10,
halfords.com) which do a sterling job, too. WATER SAVING: 250 litres — three baths full. WASHINg your hair in the shower can use up to six litres of water, so why not alternate with a clever towel- off shampoo? try Zerreau towel off Strawberry shampoo foam (£3.33, boots.com) or Nilaqua towel off Shampoo, (£3.71, boots.com).
Simply massage these into your roots and hair, then rub them away with a towel to remove grime and oil and leave your hair smelling fresh. You’ll feel just as clean as with normal shampoo.
It works a bit like make- up remover by emulsifying grease and grime, making it easier to clean it away from the hair shaft.
WATER SAVING: 24 litres — three generous buckets full. ADDINg water-retaining gel to the soil in your plant pots and hanging baskets can reduce the amount of watering your plants will need by up to 75 per cent.
Most garden centres offer a selection of different products, or try Swellgel (£ 15.99 for 1kg, swellgel.co.uk). WATER SAVING: 120 litres — a bath and a half full. ‘grEY water’ — that’s lightly used bath and shower water, or rinse water from laundry collected from the outflow pipe — can be used to water non-edible garden plants and wash cars and windows. However, transporting it in any quantity can be a problem.
that’s where the H2go water carrier (£8.39, waterirrigation.co.
uk) comes in. It’s an 80-litre bag (the equivalent of a bath full of water) with a screw cap that fits in a wheelbarrow.
It can be filled with fresh or ‘grey’ water then transported to where it’s needed — much better and more eco- friendly than using a hose! WATER SAVING: 240 litres — three baths full. WATER leaks can often be hard to detect, but can cause vast water waste. A dripping tap can leach 15 litres of water a day, and a leaky toilet can waste up to 400 litres a day. But now help is hand with LeakBot (£149, leakbot.io), an app-linked gadget that takes just a few minutes to set up — you just clip it to the water pipe closest to your stopcock.
Programmed to measure air and water temperatures, it will monitor water leaks and alert you to any it finds via the app.
WATER SAVING: One dripping tap can waste up to 5,500 litres a year so a conservative estimate for a week would be 105 litres — a bath and a quarter full. tHE AvErAgE shower uses six to 12 litres of water a minute, while a power shower can expel a more wasteful 13-22 litres of water per minute. So when it comes to saving water, the amount of time you spend in the shower is very important.
In order to keep an eye on your shower time and substantially cut your water usage, it’s worth investing in a shower timer, such as the smart, ShowerBob twist four- minute timer (£ 6.35, smartgreenshop.co.uk).
An ‘ egg timer’ that can be attached to bathroom tiles with a suction cup, it’s the ideal way to help the family reduce the average seven minute shower down to an eco-friendly four minutes. WEEKLY WATER SAVING PER PERSON: From 126 litres (one and a half baths) to 462 litres (five and three-quarters baths) of water a week, depending on shower type. WE OFTEN run the shower for 30 seconds to one minute before we get in it to allow the water to warm up.
Water-saving experts suggest popping a bucket under the shower while this is happening, so the initial eight litres or so of ‘waste’ water can be used to ‘flush’ a toilet or water plants.
This is much better than simply letting it disappear down the plug hole. WEEKLY WATER SAVING PER PERSON: 56 litres — threequarters of a bath full. IF YoU don’t have a dual flush toilet — which automatically cuts water usage — putting a Cistern Displacement Device (CDD) in your toilet cistern will help to cut the amount of water your loo uses in every flush.
the Hippo water saver (£8.94 for a pack of three, hippo-the-watersaver. is an easy-to-install, polyethylene bag that sits in the toilet cistern, under the ballcock.
It cuts the amount of water flowing from cistern to bowl in every flush by around 1.2 litres.
Popping a house brick, or a plastic water bottle full of pebbles in the cistern also works in much the same way. WEEKLY WATER SAVING PER PERSON: 42 litres — half a bath full. DoN’t tip away water that has been used to cook pasta, potatoes, eggs or similar.
once cool, it is ideal for watering plants and can also act as a soilimprover, thanks to the nutrients it contains. WEEKLY WATER SAVING: 10 litres — a bucket full.