Simple & Easy Water Saving Tips

Sonoma County Drought 2021

Just when you think life is getting back to normal, you realize that California is going through one of the worst droughts in decades. Water for most of us is one of those things you just take for granted. You’ll turn on your tap and water will always come out. Then you see photos of reservoirs so low that it looks like a bad dream. This is the reality we are all facing this year, especially in Northern California with reservoirs at 50% capacity. The last drought of this magnitude was in 1976-1977. The good news, we are better prepared to get through a drought now than back 40 plus years ago.

Simple Ways to Get Through a Drought

Droughts are periods of less-than-average rainfall. Since Sonoma County has been declared as being officially in a drought there are some simple ideas that can help you, your family, and your home weather the drought we are in. The tips we will share with you below are some tactics you can use right now to get through the summer and fall before the rains come later this year and other tips are more long-range.

These long-range water conservation tips will be ideas you can put in place for the conservation of water looking ahead over the years since California is due to get warmer with less rainfall overall due to climate change.

Put a Water Rationing Plan in Place

Currently, we are in late spring with some time to be proactive about conserving water use and establishing new habits. We have some simple ideas for both inside your home and your yard that can make a real difference in water usage and your water bill this year. For those of you that live rurally in Sonoma County and are on wells, most of these same tips apply and are probably even more important because of the cost of water delivery and your water supply depends on one well.

Indoor Water Saving Tips

We offer you below some simple indoor water rationing tips that can make a sizable difference no matter what size your household. 

• Install low-flow water faucets on all sinks
• Install low-flow showerheads of not more than 1.5 gallons a minute in your shower or shower-bath combinations.
• If you love your faucets or showerheads install flow restrictors so that it reduces the amount of water used.
• As your water is warming up in the shower or bathtub, gather the water in a 5-gallon bucket to be used for pet water or to water plants.
• Reduce showers to a few times a week instead of daily.
• Check for leaks in your bathroom and kitchen-there are now very inexpensive devices with apps for both Android and iPhone that are great leak detectors.
• Make sure you have low-flow toilets installed and if not, you can add a brick to the bottom of your toilet to consume less water with flushing.
• This brings back so many memories from when we were kids, if it’s brown flush it down, if it’s yellow be mellow-in other words don’t flush automatically with each bathroom use.
• Conserve water with fewer washer loads-wear pants, tops, and dresses more than once, really coach the kids on this-even reducing one load of wash a week makes a difference.
• Be mindful about how many dishes you use, fewer dishes, less water used.
• If we get into extreme drought conditions, consider turning off the water in the shower between wet down and lather up and rinse off.
• Use your hot tub for a soak in between showers.
• Be sure to have bottled water on hand in case of power outages and really low water situations.

Outdoor Water Conservation Tips

It’s amazing how much behavior is automatic. We are used to turning on a faucet and having water pour forth, the same is true in our gardens with outdoor water use. We share some hints below that can help conserve water outside your house, reduce your water consumption, and lower your water bill:

• Consider using a waterless car cleaner, there are some great ones for sale online and at the local auto supply stores.
• If you must have a lawn, combine an old fashioned sprinkler with having your children run through the sprinkler-lawn gets watered and kids get washed off
• Reduce days and time on your automatic watering systems.
• For your vegetable garden try using dry farming methods-once flowers have set and fruit has started to emerge lower or only water occasionally. Lower water makes for better taste and stronger plants and works well for tomatoes, grapes, pumpkins. watermelons, cantalouples, winter squash, olives. apricots, apples, and potatoes. Apples were originally dry-farmed in Sonoma County.
• Consider trading your lawn for native grasses and plants that need little or no water.
• Mulch your plants, it helps them be healthier and also helps the plant retain moisture.

Long-Range Water Saving Tips

The list we offer below is more long-range tips that we can all be proactive about with Sonoma County warming up with climate change. Most of these tips are great DIY projects and are not very costly to install. Starting now it’s good for all of us to think ahead and get water-saving methods in place that will help ensure water for our households going forward.

• Consider installing a water catchment system. Many of us in Sonoma County have a roofline that well accommodates water catchment, your roof needs to be at least a 3/12 pitch to get some good runoff.
• Many people use single rain barrels connected to their downspout to collect rainwater, but in Hawaii, many homeowners use a covered doughboy pool and a pipe off their roof to the pool to collect water. The advantage is it’s easier to access if you have the room and easier to reuse the water.
• Think of planting native trees for shade around your house and also to shade your garden near your house-more shade makes for less water usage.
• Think of trading out high water use plants for native plants in sunny areas, such as Shasta daisies, ornamental grasses, lupine, Japanese daises, Ceanothuses, Rockrose, Rose Hips, Pride of Madera, lavender, Blue Hibiscus, Hens and Chickens, Rosemary, Sage, and so much more.

At Crystal Clear Home we practice water conservation and make sure that our cleaning techniques leave your home sparkling clean with the least amount of water use. When all of us do our part with water-saving tips we can get through the 2021 drought and come out the other side in good shape. We have always been Sonoma County Strong!