Water saving tips

This isn't about either renovation or DIY, so much as about our behaviour. Some of these are taken from other websites, some are from my own experience.... check out if any of them are relevant to you ......

- get a water butt! Get another water butt!
- use a bucket and sponge to wash the car, if you have one.
- cistern displacement devices - hippos! A clean jamjar with the lid screwed on tightly, full of water, used to do the job perfectly well, and give rise to no extra production costs.
- nearly everyone has to run the hot tap for a bit before they get the hot water.... I let a little bit of that water down the drain, to help keep it fresh, but 90% of it I capture in a jug, which either contributes to a big bowl that flushes the toilet every now and then, or to watering the plants, or even soaking pans before I wash them.
- don't use a toilet as a waste bin! If you flush it, you're wasting water (and potential compostables). Even if you don't flush, you might be helping to create a blockage in 5 years time, especially if there isn't much of a drop in the soil pipe. This point was inspired by my mother, who goes into the garden every morning to brush her hair, so the birds can have it for nesting materials (and then she didn't have to clean it off the floor, of course - talk about multiple outcomes!) but in the winter, she flushed it down the toilet, and created an expensive, embarrassing problem for herself, with a good-sized toilet blockage.
- if you like drinking cold water, fill a jug and put it in the fridge ready - don't just run the tap till its cold enough.
- remember this mnemonic about flushing the toilet: "if its brown, flush it down; if its yellow, let it mellow". On one memorable occasion, we had a toilet that got bunged up with toilet paper by following this too well, so we give ourselves some leeway these days...
- fix dripping taps, it really is important.
- replace even one bath each week with a shower - saves lots, all at once!
- make sure dishwashers and washing machines are full before you put them on. And if you need to replace them, even if you have to buy second hand, buy the most energy efficient you can.
- re-use water if you can - half empty glasses of water, for example, can be put into the saucer of a houseplant.
- another way of reusing water might be to take a bucket into the shower! It would have to be a clean bucket, of course :)
- is anyone into siphoning off bathwater and lugging it out into the garden, or running a hose from the bathroom window to a water butt? Its theoretically possible, and I've seen it done on a farm in Africa - they didn't bother with the water butt, the hose was so long there was no heat transfer by the time the water got to the garden :)
- don't let the tap run when you're washing the dishes, or peeling veg, or cleaning your teeth, for that matter! It has a handle, turn it on and off!
- only boil as much water as you need - thats the kettle.
- when you only have the hot water on, and not the central heating, you probably don't need to have the boiler switched on for as long as you think you do. I have a modern hot water tank and an old boiler, and even so 20 minutes was absolutely fine, for more than a day's hot water.
- don't lose the bung for the water butt - the inside will promptly become slimy and algae-ridden, definitely unpleasant.