How Much Water Do We Waste Until the Shower is Hot Enough?

stop wasting water

My friend Eric and I both noticed that on each shower, we have to wait few minutes until water is hot enough. During all this time water is pouring directly to the drain. We agreed that we need to do something about it.

Before taking action, I thought that I need first to measure how much water is actually wasted by my family (4 people). So, I did a little experiment presented in the video below. The process is simple. Upon each shower, we poured water in a container, until it is hot enough. At the end of each day I measured the amount of collected water by transferring it into 1.5 liter bottles.

It took my family only 18 days to collect +104 liters of water that would otherwise go to the drain (see chart on figure below). That is 2114 liters of fresh water wasted every year. It’s a shame!

So, with my spouse and children, we decided to save this water. Now, we have a container close to the shower. We transfer saved water into our rain water tanks that we use for the garden. Actually, we went even a step further. We also have a container in the kitchen to collect also water used to wash fruits and vegetables.

wasted shower water chart

Obviously, the use of a container is a very basic solution. A better option would be to have saved water directly transferred through some pipe. But, that’s for a future project.

I hope that this post will inspire you to start saving water too. Please help me spread the word, by sharing this post. The more people that take action, the better it would be for the planet.

CREDITS: Photo by Jong Marshes on Unsplash

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