The Low Down On Green Living
March 28th, 2009
Steps To A Water Neutral Home
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If you’re one of those folks out there who is suffering from a bit of carbon fatigue, then a post in the NY Times’ Green Inc. blog this week could either provide additional motivation for green projects or increased fear of another jargon-laden debate. Green Inc highlighted the growing trend of striving for “water neutrality”, as highlighted at the Fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul last week.
The idea is gaining ground within a group of companies looking to understand and reduce their consumption of water, including Coca Cola, whose chairman has pledged to eventually balance out all of the water used in its products and manufacturing processes through conservation elsewhere (over 80 billion gallons worth!).
This got me to thinking: what would it take to be water-neutral in our own homes, meaning that we don’t import any net water? If we include all of the water that goes into our food and the products we consume, then it gets ugly real fast (see this post on the water content of food, for example). But what about our direct water use - showers, irrigation, toilets, etc?
Now, this would require some significant changes to a home and to local building/health/safety codes, since the only way to go water-neutral is to reuse graywater and harvest/store rainwater. Both of these options now face numerous permitting and legal obstacles around the country (including some pretty counterintuitive ones, like Utah and Colorado bans on capturing ANY rainwater at your home). Assuming we could, though, how much rain would it take to provide a family’s annual water needs?
After some pretty simple calculations, it turns out that the home of a typical family of three could be water-neutral in climates receiving roughly 25″ of rainfall or more per year under the following assumptions:
- Three-person household;
- Rainwater captured, stored and reused;
- Graywater system used;
- Indoor water efficiency measures employed: low-flow showerheads, toilets, faucets and appliances;
- Outdoor water efficiency measures employed: smart irrigation control, rain shutoff, soil moisture sensors, climate-compatible landscaping.
This basically means that home water neutrality is feasible if you live in the Midwest, anywhere along the US Atlantic or Gulf Coasts, in the Northwest and in higher rainfall areas of the West and Mountain West (here’s a set of maps to review for your area). The detailed calculations are shown below. You can use our Environmental Impact Calculator to make similar calculations for your home and region.
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Comments
Low Impact Living: Steps To A Water Neutral Home : Sustainablog
March 29th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
[...] note: This post was written by Jason Pelletier, and originally published at Low Impact Living on March 28, [...]
Annie in TX
March 31st, 2009 at 11:00 am
I live alone and made a female urinal. It’s basically a motor oil funnel attached to a PVC pipe that goes into a recycled juice bottle. Yes, you do stand to urinate. I put 5 drops of TKO orange into the container to neutralize the urine smell and empty it once a day into my compost. My water usage went down from 1800 gallons per month to 700 gallons. I use less than 1/4 cup of water to “flush” the filter and wipe it with a disinfectant wipe. I also collect rain water in 5 gal buckets and put the water in empty soda bottles for usage to clean the urinal, fill birdbath, water indoor and outdoor plants, and anything besides bathing, washing dishes, or clothes. I had already been practicing water conservation which kept me under 2000 gal per month easily like turning off the shower while I shampoo or soap up, not running water while brushing teeth, using plants that are adapted to the area. However, the urinal made a tremendous impact. It is simple and inexpensive to make, easy to clean, quick to use, every family member can have their own. I did a patent search because I believe so much in it and found someone had already patented it 3-4 years ago. My question is why isn’t Kohler or American Standard making them.
Just think if every person in the US shaved 1000 gal per month from their current usage that would be about 300 billion gallons per month saved!
Low impact living: Steps to a water neutral home « Rain Harvest Cafe
March 31st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
[...] by rainharvesting on March 31, 2009 Editor’s note: This post was written by Jason Pelletier, and originally published at Low Impact Living on March 28, [...]
Jim | Revive Your Life
March 31st, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Wow..I haven’t quite made that big step like Annie in Texas. I like the fact that you included a model representation to give your readers a better understanding of the impact. Great information!
Thanks
Jim
Revive Your Life
Harriet
April 6th, 2009 at 5:26 am
From your model we use for 2 people an average of less than 2500 gal/month for both of us, sometimes more like 1900 gal/month or 950 gal per person. Doing the math for a year we use around 35,000 per year for the 2 of us.
Our best thing is we have no turf grass, lots of green weeds and a mix of lawn grass but never watered or fertilized except for grass clippings. We can’t use any type of standard irrigation system because our yard water is from a spring with lots of sand so I would spend more on a filter system than the rest of the irrigation system would cost. Therefore we spend pennies a day to water my flower beds when they need them and the yard just gets what is over spray or rain. Sprinklers are not the most efficient but I work hard on them and I can use some soaker hoses. I use a passive system with reclaimed barrles on a 2 foot tall wooden platform and garden hose for veggies. This is mostly from our spring and small water pump, that is only for pulling water up from a water source into a hose, no tank sotrage so no pressure regulation.
I use cat litter jugs to get the warm up water from my shower and dogs use mop buckets which means I have lots of doggie gray water for watering the roots of new plants. I can use my spring water form a hose to fill another trash can for a passive watering system for my driest flower bed around the foundation of my house.
We do have the smal low flow shower head that Gaiam sells, the only one I might add of the low flow group of shower heads that has a valve to cut off water to soap up, I don’t understand why that is, I would think all low flow heads would have that valve.
Harriet
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