Water Conservation

Have you ever looked at your water bill and been absolutely shocked by the amount due? This happens quite a bit, and there are ways to help keep your water bill down as well as possibly help conserve our water supply.

Here are some easy, proven ways to help reduce the amount of wasted water and wasted money.

The best place to start is in our kitchens and bathrooms.

Watch those water faucets, especially when they are running. So much water just goes right down the drain whether you are washing your dishes, washing your hands, brushing your teeth, or even letting the water run to warm up your bath or shower. Imagine all those wasted drops of water literally as money going down the drain. Ouch that hurts, huh?

Give this a try:

• Wait to turn on the water until you’re ready to use it.
• When taking a shower, try getting in and out as quickly as possible. Showers use an estimated 17% of our total household water usage - that’s about one fifth of all your household water use! Long showers may feel amazing in the moment but you will definitely pay for them in the long run.
• Try throwing that unwanted food into a compost pile instead of trying to put it down the garbage disposal. Not only will you conserve water, but you could help prevent a little bit of food waste as well.
• Make sure your washing machine and your dishwasher are full – run full loads. A dishwasher averages about 3 gallons of water per load, while a washing machine averages about 19 gallons of water per load.

Got a sprinkler system?

During the fall/winter months, we see our water bills go way down versus the warmer spring/summer months. Well there’s definitely a reason for this! Winter months are usually our wetter months in Oregon, so there’s not much reason to use the sprinkler system for our gardens right? Then we get these large hikes once the warmer weather approaches. Guess what we turned on? That’s right, our sprinklers!

Sprinkler systems use on average about 1,020 gallons of water, so if you water three times a week that’s about 12,240 gallons per month. Moreover, since Woodburn calculates water usage in cubic feet, that’s about 1636.25 Cubic feet of water consumption just from your sprinkler alone.

Now we aren’t saying don’t water your gardens, but there are helpful ways to do so when it comes to conserving the water.

• Try watering earlier in the day. It’s usually cooler so it allows for the soil around your plants to absorb more water. If you wait until later in the day most of that water will evaporate before the plants have a chance to indulge themselves.

Remember, there’s no need to water more than one hour per day. If you see pools of water in your flowerbeds after watering that means there’s too much water and most of it will just evaporate. 

All these tips and tricks are great ways to help us all conserve water, as well as save money while we are at it, and most importantly help make our planet a lot better.

If you’d like more water consumption tips, feel free to give us a call (503)982-5380.