The topic of today’s blog? H2O conservation. There are many ways to conserve water from turning off the faucet when brushing your teeth to “if it’s yellow let it mellow” toilet etiquette (but we’ll cover that in another post.) The tip for today is
the bucket shower. This doesn’t mean using a bucket of water and a cup to shower. Instead the idea is to use a bucket to gather all unused water. This idea started when I lived a house with only one water heater that had to pump hot water up three stories. Instead of letting the cold water run down the drain as I waited, I placed a small bucket in the shower to collect the cold water. You can also catch runoff during the shower and when ringing out your hair. This “gray water” can then be used to flush your toilet.
There are two options to do this:
1) Turn off the water supply valve at the bottom of the toilet and fill the tank with your bucket water, flushing the toilet as normal.
2) If you have a lower volume tank it might be easier (since it takes less water) to just pour the water directly into the toilet bowl and the pressure will flush the toilet.
Either way, you are saving gallons of water every time you shower and every time you flush!
This is a really great idea. I know that it can be hard if you have a vintage shower, but it will really save you quite a bit of money. My parents did this for a long time, using an old pitcher to get the water from the tub. It saved quite bit of money on their monthly bill.
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