Time to take water-saving seriously
With the massive backlog in the maintenance of water infrastructure at municipalities throughout the country, water cuts are likely to become as much a part of our lives as load shedding. While there’s not much that households can do to avoid this, one thing we can all do to help minimise the problem, is conserve the amount of water that we do use.
That’s the view of Omar Kinnear, developer of ResidentPortal, a web-based communications portal for community schemes, reminds us of a number of ways we can reduce our water consumption:
Turn the tap off
Seemingly simple acts like leaving the tap running while you brush your teeth could be wasting up to 24 litres of water a day. When you don’t need the water, the tap should be off.
Check for leaks and drips
A dripping tap can waste more than 5 300 litres of water a year. So make sure your taps are properly turned off and change washers promptly when taps start to drip.
To detect a slow leak in your toilet follow these steps:
- Add a few drops of food colouring to your toilet cistern.
- Don’t flush it for around an hour.
- If the food colouring leaks into the toilet bowl, you have a leak.
Use dual flush toilets
Toilet flushing can account for about a third of a household’s water use, with old style flush systems using a massive 13 litres per flush.. Dual flush toilets typically use 4-6 litres of water – a substantial saving.
If you can’t invest in a new toilet, you can reduce the flush volume by putting a couple of pebbles in a plastic bottle, filling it with water, and placing it in the cistern away from the flushing mechanism.
Use a dishwasher – the right way
A standard dishwasher uses around 9.5 litres of water per wash, while hand washing generally uses up to 60 litres. Don’t pre-rinse your dishes, and always wait till your dishwasher is full.
Tips for washing up by hand
The way you wash up by hand can drastically alter how much water you use. You can use a bowl – and don’t rinse under a running tap.
Save the laundry until it’s really necessary
Nowadays, the average washing machine cycle uses about 50 litres of water per wash. If you can reduce or consolidate the number of washes you do per week, you could be saving 50 litres of water for every wash you cut out.
Only boil the water you need
Save water and energy by only filling the kettle with as much water as you actually need.
Use a vegetable steamer
Using a vegetable steamer instead of multiple pans is another great option to conserve water. Plus your vegetables will retain more natural goodness.
Choose water efficient kitchen appliances
If you’re due an appliance upgrade, it’s worth researching which ones are the most water efficient.
Shorten your showers
Showers account for 25 percent of an average household’s water use.Simple changes like cutting your shower time by a couple of minutes could conserve water and cut your energy bills as well. Why not invest in a waterproof shower timer to help you keep track?
Replace your shower head
Use a low flow shower head, which restricts the volume of water without compromising power.
Shower instead of bath
An average bath uses 80 litres of water, so a five-minute shower (at an average of 50 litres) is definitely the more water-efficient option.
Recycle used water
Keep pasta cooking water, or water leftover from washing clothes or dishes by hand. Then use it to water plants in the garden, wash the kids’ bikes, or do a quick mop of the kitchen floor (we know we said no mopping with water, but this is okay).
Water your plants at the right time
Only water plants in the garden when they really need it. And when you do, make sure it’s in the early morning or at the end of the day – this will stop the water immediately evaporating in sunlight and heat.
ABOUT ResidentPortal
ResidentPortal is developed and managed by Sandton-based software consulting and development company, Business Xponent Solutions (BXS). The estate communication platform is one of the products emerging from 20 years of experience in the software industry of its founder, Omar Kinnear. One of the original developers of the SARS eFiling platform, Kinnear brings to ResidentPortal a wealth of knowledge of system performance and security.
Since 2016, around 100 complexes are using the Free Plan of ResidentPortal, and over 1000 residents, mostly in and around Gauteng, are benefiting from the way the full-featured Standard and Pro packages are simplifying their lives in their estates and complexes.
For more information, contact: Omar Kinnear, 078 798 3378
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