How To Conserve Water When You Do Your Laundry
It is a terrible shame to waste anything unnecessarily – especially when what you are wasting is something of vital importance to all aspects of life on this planet, water. One way you can slash the amount of water wasted in your home life is to construct a few simple changes to how you do your laundry.
A great thought, if you can afford it, is to invest in a new and more efficient washing machine, but that isn’t always an option for those who are struggling financially or simply don’t have that kind of money immediately available (although the machine would practically pay for itself in the long run in terms of savings on your utility bills). There are calm plenty of ways you can conserve water and cleave the amount wasted – and they won’t cost you a dime!
If you have a dehumidifier which collects water in a receptacle, instead of emptying the water down the drain or outside, pour it into your washing machine. Your machine will fill faster and use less water to do so if you add to it from an already existing supply which would otherwise be wasted anyway. A typical dehumidifier collects much more water than you need for your household plants, so even if you already expend the water for that, there should still be plenty left to add to your washer’s fill cycle.
Do you have leaky faucets in your house? You’d be surprised to discover just how much water you can collect, descend by drop, if you put a receptacle like a bucket or bowl underneath it. Instead of honest letting those precious drops roll down the drain, save them and use them! Even a slowly dripping faucet can collect two or more buckets a day of water that can be added to your wash!
Don’t forget the water that is freely given to us from the sky! Rain water is perfect for a washer’s gain cycle, and it is absolutely free! In addition to buckets and pails, there are also special systems for harvesting rain water you can situation up, not only for use in your laundry, but you can also add a filtration system and connect the whole thing to your home for all your water needs – even drinking!
Now that you know some additional sources for water to bear your washing machine, there are a few other ways you can maximize your laundry water conservation. Use the water level settings on your machine appropriately (you don’t need to fill the entire machine to wash half a load of laundry). Make sure you wash as many items at once as you can. Only wash things which are actually dirty – a lot of things you’ve only worn once can actually be worn one or two times more before they truly need to be laundered – when you take off your clothes and they are still relatively clean, fold or hang them nicely and put them someplace where they will stay nice until you want to wear them again instead of just sticking them in the hamper. You can even hold your previously worn but not quite dirty clothes for a tumble in the dryer with a fabric softener sheet to freshen them up, but in the interest of conservation, I recommend you wait until you have a nice sized pile of clean previously worn clothes gathered together so you can do them all at once.
By utilizing some easy and painless changes, not only can you save water and possibly money, you will also feel pleasant because you’ll know that you are doing something positive towards conserving our planet’s most precious resource.
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Filed under Ge Whole House Water Filters by on Dec 17th, 2011. 