Wasted water

Tuesday, 2:38 pm

By Kate

May

15

2007

When J was over the other day, I mentioned how much water I waste each day waiting for hot water to run out of the kitchen tap. I’ve been thinking about that for a while now and it bothers me. What I don’t understand is why this house’s builder installed the hot water tank on the front side of the house (basement) while the kitchen and bath are on the back side of the house. Water has to run a long way before it reaches either place. Seems to me it would have been more prudent to put the source of the hot water relatively close to where it’s needed. J wondered if there was some kind of building code that requires that set-up. I don’t know, but it’s not practical at all.

What I never knew was exactly how much I wasted in a day.

Yesterday I brought home an 11 quart dish pan and plopped it in the sink. I let the water pour into it while I waited for hot water to appear. Between the time I brought it home (about 3:00 in the afternoon) and the time I went to bed, I’d filled the 11 quart dish pan to the brim. I could probably have half filled it once more between morning and mid-afternoon.

So, just a quick calculation using only the 11 quarts of water waste over a 7 day period....that would give me about 77 quarts a week, times 48 weeks (assuming days away from home during the year)...and I end up with 3696 quarts of water that normally run down my drain doing no one any good. Pure waste. That translates into about 924 gallons per year just from the kitchen sink for one person. While the lad is home, it’ll be more.

That’s a lot of wasted water. I haven’t checked, but I’m sure it’s worse in the bathroom upstairs.

I’ve been getting used to washing my hands in cold water. But I still need hot water for some things. Ideally, I’d like to move the hot water tank, but that’ll require further investigation.

Well, what to do with this wasted water?

I’ll save the water in the dish pan every day and use it in the garden and on potted plants throughout the summer. In the winter, though, I’m not sure what I can do with 11 or more quarts of water a day. I don’t have that many house plants and nothing is that thirsty on a daily basis. That much wasted water is appalling.