Wasteweardaily

There are quite a few ways to save water in the kitchen. First, lets look at where water is used. There is food prep, cooking,  clean-up, and miscellaneous use.

A great way to make the water in your kitchen do double duty is to have a grey water system. It can be as rudimentary as washing vegetables in a dish pan and then carrying the dish pan outside to water plants. Here is a great post on grey water. http://thesustainablehome.blogspot.com/2008/04/safe-use-of-household-grey water.html Another method for capturing grey water is a funnel called Envirosink that is installed behind your sink and allows you to run the water till it is hot or cold, and capture that water for reuse. You could also pour water into it from containers like your dish pan. The Envirosink can be directed to a collection tank for processing or direct use.

When preparing food for meals, be aware of how much water you use. If you do not have an aerator on your kitchen tap, get one. It should slow the flow to 2 gallons per minute. When vegetables or fruits get washed, wash them in a dish pan or large pot of water. Don’t let all that valuable water run down the drain. We keep a five gallon bucket near our sink so we can pour water into it throughout the day and empty it onto trees, bushes or plants. Don’t use running water to defrost foods. Let them sit in the fridge overnight or use your microwave.

If you cook food by boiling it such as pasta, vegetables or eggs, let the water cool down and add it to your compost pile or garden. If you have ants or weeds in an unwanted location, the hot water water will kill them both. When cooking, chose your pot size wisely. Too large a pot will not only use more water than necessary, but use more energy to heat up as well.

When cleaning up, don’t throw all those food scraps and peels down the disposal, start a compost pile. If you are in an apartment or have a really good excuse for not composting, use that grey water from washing your veggies to run the disposal. Think creatively. There is a big debate about whether or not dishwashers use more or less water than hand washing. Well my answer is sometimes more and sometimes less. What it boils down to is exactly how much water is used in total for each method. Some people pre-rinse all their dishes before loading them into the dishwasher. Don’t do this if you have a new D/W. I do this because we have an 18 year old D/W. I only use about a gallon of water for all the pre-rinsing. An older or non energy star D/W can use 14 or more gallons per load. Whereas an energy star model will use more like 8.5 gallons/load. So, if you could measure how much water you used to hand wash dishes, it would have to be less than your D/W used to be saving water. One method for hand washing, if you have the sink room, is to have a basin for the initial de-grimming of the plates. Then a basin of warm soapy water. Then a basin of warm water to rinse. The first two basins could hold as little as one gallon of water. The rinse basin may need three. This gets you five gallon/load. So not only did you save water, but you saved electricity as well.  If you hand wash in basins, you can save the water, if you use a D/W you cannot. Just remember to use biodegradable soap. [Edited to add: When using a dishwasher always run a full load of dishes.]

The last couple of miscellaneous thoughts about saving water in the kitchen are, first, don’t let the water run till it is cold to get a drink. Keep a pitcher of filtered water in the fridge. And lastly, but may be the most important is to fix any and all leaks as soon a they are discovered. A leaky faucet can waste thousands of gallons of water per year. If you can’t fix it right away, keep a container under the faucet. As long as the container is clean, the water will be clean enough to use.

Have you ever turned on your garden hose to find out that the water was so hot you would cook your plants unless you let the water run awhile?  Well if you haven’t, give it a try. It is the inspiration behind our cheap solar water heater. Several years back, my Dad gave us a bunch of irrigation tubing. We decided to try to turn it into a solar water heater. It worked really well, so when we moved, we brought it to the new house. This is how we hooked it up.

The solar water heater we have is a black garden hose connected to an outdoor spigot at one end. The hose travels up the side of the house and onto the roof.

The next end is connected to another hose, then about 100 feet of irrigation tubing.

Special fittings were added to be able to connect it to the hose.

The next part is a hose that is designed to withstand hot temperatures. It is red. We got it at Lowe’s.

At the end of the red hose is a metal piece that allows you to shut the water off.

We keep the water turned on at the spigot all the time. This keeps water in the hose. We have had problems doing this. The hoses sometimes weaken with the hot sun and you get leaks or large busted holes. Then my husband repairs it and we may turn the water off each time we use it for awhile, then go back to leaving it on. Even if you turn the water off in between uses, there will still be enough left in the hose for the next time. If you had the mental ability to do this, you could turn the water on about 30 minutes before you needed it and then off when finished. My mind just doesn’t work that way.

Obviously, the more hose length you have, the more water you can heat up. There is a formula to find out exactly how much water a hose will hold according to its diameter and length.  Someone else can figure that out. I don’t know how many feet of hose we really have, but we can get about 10 gallons of hot water. Now remember, we only use about 4-5 gallons of water for bathing. The only other thing we use the water for is laundry. The washer needs 7 gallons to get it going. I don’t add more for the rinse cycle. The other thing to consider is that the water temp will vary from 110F to 140F when it is in the sun. If you do a bucket bath you may need to add cold water to get a reasonable temperature. Don’t burn yourself!

If you were to attempt a do it yourself version like we have, remember we live in Florida. We have less than 20 days of below freezing temps. If you live in a colder climate you may need to drain all the hoses and store them for the winter. For even more information on various DIY solar projects visit this site:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm  They even have the garden hose as an option. Any questions?