6 ways to save water during the hosepipe ban

As you’ll likely be aware a hosepipe ban is now in effect up and down the country as the government takes drastic, but much needed, action in the face of a huge water shortage.

Thames Water, Anglian Water, South East Water, southern Water in Kent and Sussex, Veolia Central and South East – which covers much of London and the home counties – and Sutton and East Surrey Water have all introduced the 'Temporary Use Bans' with those who flout the rules liable to pay fines as large as £1000.

For those who are eager to do their bit to minimise any further water wastage in the home and garden, Quidblog has the following handy hints and tips.

• If you’re brushing your teeth make sure you turn the tap off while you’re giving your mouth a good scrubbing. A running tap wastes 6 litres of water a minute.  If the entire adult population of England and Wales remembered to do this, we could save 180 mega litres a day - enough to supply nearly 500,000 homes.

• Leaky taps waste an awful amount of water (approximately 5,500 litres a year!), so make sure you regularly check and repair them. You could save upwards of £18  a year just by changing a washer. The same applies to kitchen pipes and the hose which connects your dishwasher. It’s a good idea to locate and make a note of where your stop valve is, that way if you suffer a burst pipe you’ll know how to stem the flow instantly.

• If you wash your dishes by hand, don’t leave the water running. Fill up a washing-up bowl, clean everything and then rinse at the end. Alternatively, if you do have access to a washing machine make sure you only use it when it is full. In certain cases it could actually end up using less water than a hand washing session.  Become familiar with your dishwasher’s cycle options. Many settings provide the same cleaning power as a normal cycle, but with less water and energy.

• As much as you may like having a bath, the truth is that they are a very wasteful means of bathing. The average bath needs 80 litres to fill it, while a shower, on average, uses only a third of that figure. For those who must insist on a bath, you can minimise your H20 use by reusing your bathwater to whet the appetite of your houseplants or garden.

• Although showers are, in the main, a more environmentally friendly means of washing, power showers still use a huge amount of water. Bearing that in mind you should keep it short and snappy.  If each person in your family spent one minute less in the shower, you could save over 37,000 litres of water per year (based on a family of four who each take an average of four showers a week), which could fill over 7,000 buckets.

• About 24 per cent of an average household's water consumption is used up when flushing the toilet. You can reduce this by simply installing a cistern device such as a save-a-flush can, which reduces output by one litre per flush or a Hippo watersaver which saves you 2.5 litres.  If you already have a modern dual flushing toilet then you won't need to install a device as these already use less water.

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