Simple Ways to Save Water at Home

Why Saving Water Saves You Money

Water feels like something that simply arrives when you turn a tap — and unless you're on a meter, you may never see a separate bill for it. But the water coming out of your hot tap has already been paid for twice: once to the water company, and again to your boiler or immersion heater. Heating water typically accounts for around a fifth of the average UK household's energy bill, and rather more in busy family homes with long shower habits.

That's the quiet beauty of saving water: the savings land in two places at once. Use fewer litres and you spend less on water and less on the gas or electricity that warms them. The changes below are small, free or cheap, and none of them ask you to live any less comfortably.

Start With the Shower

A power shower can use more water in five minutes than a full bath, so the length of your shower matters more than almost anything else you'll do today. Aim for four minutes — roughly two songs — and you'll trim both your water and your heating costs without feeling hard done by.

A few easy wins inside the shower itself:

• Fit an aerated, water-saving shower head. These mix air into the flow, so the shower still feels strong while using noticeably less water. They cost very little and take minutes to swap.
• Turn the water off while you lather, shave or condition your hair. It sounds fussy; in practice you barely notice.
• Keep a small timer in the bathroom, or set a phone alarm. What gets measured gets shortened.

If baths are more your thing, filling it a couple of inches lower saves around 10 to 15 litres each time.

Fix the Drips You've Stopped Noticing

A dripping tap is easy to ignore, partly because it's been dripping for months and your brain has filed it under "background noise". A single tap dripping once a second can waste more than 5,000 litres a year — enough to fill a large water butt several times over. And if it's the hot tap, you've paid to heat every drop.

Most dripping taps need nothing more than a new washer or a replacement ceramic cartridge, which cost a pound or two and take ten minutes with a spanner and a cloth.

While you're at it, check for:

• Loo leaks. A failing flush valve can trickle hundreds of litres a day. Test it by adding a few drops of food colouring to the cistern, waiting fifteen minutes without flushing, then checking whether any colour has reached the pan.
• Overflow pipes that dribble. A permanently damp patch on an outside wall is the giveaway.
• Outside taps left half-turned after watering the garden.

Make Every Flush Count

Older toilets can use nine litres or more per flush; modern dual-flush models use a fraction of that. You don't need to replace your loo to make a difference.

• Use the half-flush button if you have one. It's there for a reason, and it's almost always plenty.
• Fit a cistern displacement device — a sealed bag that sits in the cistern and saves around a litre per flush. Many water companies give them away free to customers, so it's worth asking.
• Never drop a brick in. It crumbles, and the grit can damage the flush valve.

Kitchen and Laundry Habits That Add Up

Appliances are where water use is easiest to overlook, because you're not standing there watching it.

• Fill the machine. Wait until the washing machine and dishwasher are full before running them, and choose the eco setting. Eco cycles run longer at lower temperatures, which uses less energy and usually less water.
• Steam rather than boil. A little water in a lidded pan cooks vegetables perfectly well, and pasta doesn't need a pan filled to the brim.
• Keep a jug in the fridge instead of running the tap until the water turns cold.
• Wash veg in a bowl, then tip the water onto your houseplants. The water left from steaming veg is good for them too, once cooled.

Let the Rain and the Soil Do the Work

Outdoor water use is where a hosepipe can undo weeks of careful indoor saving: an hour with a sprinkler can use more water than a family gets through in a day.

• Fit a water butt to a downpipe and use rainwater on beds, pots and hanging baskets. It's free, soft, and better for most plants than tap water.
• Water early or late, and aim at the soil rather than the leaves, so less evaporates.
• Mulch with compost or bark around plants to hold moisture in the soil — it cuts summer watering markedly.
• Wash the car with a bucket and sponge rather than a running hosepipe, and fit a trigger nozzle if you do use one.

None of these changes will transform your household in a weekend, but added together they quietly trim both your water and your energy bills. Start with whichever is easiest today — the dripping tap, the four-minute shower, the water butt under the downpipe. Small habits, repeated, are how most households end up spending less.