How much water does your household use?

[pinkytoe]

I read that the average American household uses 400 gallons of water a day so was curious to see what we used. Checked our latest water bill and we used 3300 gallons so a little over 100 gallons a day for two adults. Seems like a lot but we both take showers (sometimes together:) and run the dishwasher once a day. It is probably quadruple that in the summer when we have to water plants to keep them alive. How much water does your household use?

[Mrs-M]

We aren't controlled by water metres, so have no way of knowing how much water we use from day to day, but we all do our part (entire household) to conserve and be less wasteful in all areas.

When it comes to watering (spring till early fall), we follow and abide by the municipalities guidelines and restrictions pertaining to water use (DH works for the city so not much choice in the matter), we also practice "sailors showers", and water is never left running while brushing teeth, rinsing dishes, etc.

In the new year (gee I can't wait), I'm hoping DH finishes up my laundry room so I can buy myself a new washer/dryer set, which of course will be energy efficient. I'm also particular when it comes to doing laundry, no small loads if it all possible.

If everyone made a conscientious effort to reduce and be water-smart, what a world it would be. And, most of all, what I'd really like to see, is a total ban on fracking, as well as other ventures where companies violate and abuse water use.

[bae]

We don't really keep track, we are fortunate in our location to have a practically-unlimited supply, as long as we aren't silly and allow plumbing fittings to leak or that sort of thing.

http://www.simplelivingforum.net/showthread.php?1349-Where-does-*your*-water-come-from

I help run our village's water system, where the supply *is* rather limited. The baseline allocation per residence is 5000 gallons per month, 95% of the members stay below the baseline useage, and most of them are at < 2500 gallons/month.

[CathyA]

We have a well. This christmas season has been horrible with water usage..........lots of cooking, cleaning, laundry. DD came home from an apartment with bed bugs, so we did TONS of washing and drying over and over with her stuff! DS likes to wash his clothes often. I just hope our pump holds out.

[studentofecology]

We used an average of 169 gallons per day last month- and that was for 5 adults and besides me people really aren't that concerned with water usage. I'm frankly shocked that the average usage is 400 for a household, where does it all go? Watering the lawn and long showers, I guess.

[IshbelRobertson]

Our water consumption is not metered, so I have no clue about how much we use. However, I have insisted that my kids grew up without running water whilst brushing their teeth, etc. We lived in some fairly arid countries and I made sure they were aware that water was a valuable commodity.

[rosarugosa]

Interesting question. I calculate 174 avg gals per day over the course of a year, so this includes summer usage which would be higher than winter usage. We are a household of two adults. We shower together, no dishwasher, no pool, don't water a lawn, do keep a small vegetable garden, wash our own cars, have a low-flow toilet and showerhead. I'm surprised that our usage is as high as it is.

[early morning]

rosa, now I don't feel quite so bad! Three adults here who try to conserve water (with the occasional visit of a fourth, who tends to take showers until the hot water runs out...) and we average 160-180 gallons per day. I honestly wonder if our meter is true, but have no way to check it. And I sure don't trust the local "water board" people, 'cause I KNOW them!

[freein05]

We are billed every two months so our usage is for two months. We used 529 cubic feet. Not sure what that is in gallons. We are billed on usage if we go over 6,000 cubic feet we are billed at a higher rate.

We have two human dishwashers and a dual flush toilet. It only uses .8 gallons for yellow and 1.6 gallons per flush for the other. It works great and it is a Caromo made in Australia. Your seat is much higher then on an American made toilet. It is nice for us old people. No bending down at an important time in your day.

Edited to add: Thanks to math wiz studentofecology I used 3,956 gallons of water in Nov. and Dec. of this year.

[studentofecology]

Freein05, 1 cubit foot = 7.48 gallons.

[Simpler at Fifty]

I just figured ours out based on the last 12 months and we average 104.72 gal per day. 2 adults and 1 dog. We shower (low flow showerheads) every other day in the winter and every day in the summer. Garden gets watered every day for the first 2 weeks after planting then occasionaly depending on the rain we get. We have 2 1.6 gal and 1 .8 gal toilets and we do not flush the liquid each time. I do 3 or 4 loads of laundry each week. Dh said when he went to college for waste water treatment they said the average was 200 gals per person per day. This was back in the early 90s.

[Blackdog Lin]

We average 133 gallons a day for our 2 person/1 dog household (I just paid the water bill tonight and checked it out). It goes up quite a bit from June-September with flower/garden watering.

We only do the little things for water conservation: turning the faucet off during teeth-brushing and hand-washing, only doing 3 large loads of laundry a week, only running the dishwasher when it's PLUMB full, etc. And we don't feel a need to necessarily bathe every single day. But still I know we could be doing a lot more. Low-flow toilets, and showerheads, grey-water cachement (would like to try this), military showers, shoot, rainbarrels for watering in the summer!

I need to get more motivated into this. Well, I retire in June. More time to work on DH to help me with the water conservation!

[Greg44]

Just figured ours - we use .28 units per day (unit = 748 gallons) or 209 gallons a day! WOW. Two adults, one teenager.
DD - long showers, DW - extra (unnecessary) rinse when doing laundry, ME - LONG hot showers after running!

To think this is nearly four 55 gallon barrels of water each and every day! So wasteful we are.

[daisy]

I just looked at our last bill and during the billing period of mid-November to mid-December, we used 4 units, or 99.73 gallons per day. We just moved into our new house and have a new high efficiency washer, so I'm hoping that we'll use even less soon (the new house shares the same meter). We used more during the past summer, when it was excessively hot and dry. Hopefully this summer will be better.

[jennipurrr]

Now I want to check this! I am pretty sure we are light water users. I switched to super low flow shower head recently (http://www.simplelivingforum.net/showthread.php?3471-Low-Flow-Showerhead). My household is two people who shower daily 5-8 min showers. 3 dogs and two cats who drink water and bathe on a much less regular basis. We don't have a dishwasher so we wash by hand. DH does super water conservation dish washing method, me not so much. When our old washer died (exploded water all over the floor, heh) we got an HE model. So yeah, definitely going to check it out...400 gallons seems like a really big number. Our water bill is around $40 which I suppose is not a helpful number without knowing the rate and I know a big chunk of that is that we are on sewer and trash service. So...definitely going to check out the usage.

Just an aside...its been a month and DH and I are totally happy with the super low flow shower head. We don't notice any kind of difference now.

[jennipurrr]

Ok, I dug up the water bill...79.6 gallons per day. Even double that, if we had kids or more people in the household is only about 160. How do people use 400???