Water
Water
Here are a few tips for you to help conserve one of Florida's most precious resources.
Indoors
- Turn water off between rinses when washing your hands, dishes, brushing your teeth or while in the shower.
- Perform routine leak detection and repair
- Install low-flow retrofit kits for your shower heads, faucets and toilets.
- When remodeling or upgrading, install water saving toilets, dishwashers and clothes washers.
- Replace an old ineffecient toilet with a new toilet. Toilets made before 1993 use anywhere from a 3.5 gallon per flush (gpf) up to 8 gpf, while new high effeciency toilets are mandated to use 1.6 gpf or less.
- Check to see if your water utility offers any rebates for replacing old inefficient toilets.
- Make sure your toilet is not leaking and replace the flapper if necessary.
- Avoid using caustic toilet bowl cleaners such as toilet tank tablets. These products alter the pH of water in your toilet tank and damage plastic and rubber toilet parts causing severe leaks.
- During drought emergencies: Flush less frequently. Some families adopt variations on the adage, "if it's yellow, let it mellow and if it's brown, flush it down."
Outdoors
Xeriscape.- Soil moisture sensors can be used to sense the levels of moisture in the soil around the plant's root zone and signal irrigation only when needed.
- Rain sensors can be used that automatically shut off irrigation systems when they detect preset levels of rainfall.
- Use micro-irrigation systems that apply water directly to the plant's root system, using less water and reducing runoff.
