Save Water in the Bathroom

Check your toilets for leaks. Put a little food coloring in your toilet tank. If, without flushing, the color begins to appear in the bowl, you have a leak that should be repaired immediately. Leaks inside the toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water a day. When constructing a new home or remodeling your bathroom, install low consumption (1.6 gal/flush) toilets.

Check faucets and pipes for leaks. Even the smallest drip from a worn washer can waste 20 or more gallons a day. Larger leaks can waste hundreds.

Stop using the toilet as an ashtray or wastebasket. Every time you flush a cigarette butt, facial tissue or other small bit of trash, you waste five to seven gallons of water.

Put plastic bottles in your toilet tank. To cut down on water waste, put an inch or two of sand or pebbles inside each of two plastic bottles to weigh them down. Fill them with water and put them in your toilet tank, safely away from operating mechanisms. In an average home, the bottles may displaces and save 10 or more gallons of water a day.

Take shorter showers. Long, hot showers can waste five to 10 gallons every unneeded minute. Limit your showers to the time it takes to soap up, wash down and rinse off. If your shower has a single-handle control or shut-off valve, turn off the flow while soaping or shampooing.

Install water-saving showerheads or flow restrictors. Your local hardware or plumbing supply store stocks inexpensive water-saving showerheads or restrictors that are easy to install. Leaking diverter valves (valves which divert water from the tub spout to the showerhead) should be replaced.

Take baths. A bath in a partially filled tub uses less water than all but the shortest of showers.

Turn off the water after you wet your toothbrush. There is no need to keep water pouring down the drain. Just wet your brush and fill a glass for mouth rinsing.

Rinse your razor in the sink. Fill the bottom of the sink with a few inches of warm water. This will rinse your blade just as well as running water, and be far less wasteful.