The Lawhead Team would like to share some helpful tips to conserve water at home, both inside and out.

1. Kitchen: When washing dishes by hand, don’t let the water run. Fill one basin with wash water and the other with rinse water.
2. Laundry Room: Washing dark clothes in cold water saves water and energy, and helps your clothes retain their color.
3. Bathroom: Turn off the water while you brush your teeth and save up to 4 gallons a minute. That’s up to 200 gallons a week for a family of four.
4. Shower: Shorten your shower by a minute or two and you’ll save up to 150 gallons per month. If you keep your shower under 5 minutes, you’ll save up to 1,000 gallons per month.
5. Indoors: Grab a wrench and fix that leaky faucet. It’s simple, inexpensive, and you can save 140 gallons of water a week.
6. Landscaping: When sprucing up your front or backyard, consider xeriscaping. This landscape method uses low-water-use plants to limit your water use.
7. Yard: Adjust your lawn mower to the height of 1.5 to 2 inches. Taller grass shades roots and holds soil moisture better than short grass.
8. Sprinklers: Check your sprinkler system frequently and adjust sprinklers so only your lawn is watered and not the house, sidewalk or street. Minimize evaporation by watering during the early morning hours when temperatures are cooler and winds are lighter.
9. Children: Teach children to turn off faucets tightly after each use. One drip every second adds up to five gallons per day! Check your faucets and showerheads for leaks.
10. Office: Create a goal of how much water your company can save and plan a celebration once that goal is met.

You can find 100 plus more ways to save water at the “Water Use It Wisely” website.

The California Association of Realtors® “One Cool Thing” recently sent out a diagram of where exactly your home’s water is being wasted.

A typical three bedroom, single family home in California uses approximately 174,000 gallons of water a year!

Here is where most families are using that water:

• Kitchen and bathroom faucets – 9%
• Shower – 17%
• Toilets – 4%
• Clothes Washer – 4%
• Landscaping – 57%
• Overwatering – 9%

Did you know approximately 1 gallon of water equals $10? The following is a cost breakdown for the water used in your home:

• Low flow toilets save 6.4 gallons per flush and cost anywhere from $60-$200.
• Faucet aerators save 1.5 gallons per minute and only cost $2.
• Low-flow shower heads save 2.5-3.5 gallons of water per minute and only cost anywhere from $10 to $40.

The California Senate Bill 407 states that by January 1, 2017 all residential properties in California that were build prior to 1994 will be required to retrofit with the following:

• Toilets that use no more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush.
• Shower heads with flow rates of no more than 2.5 gallons per minute.
• Other interior fixtures that use less than 2.2 gallons of water per minute.

Source: California Association of Realtors® and the California Homebuilding Foundation.