Save Water

Simple Water Saving Devices

There is a popular piece of advice often spread by plumbers that putting a brick into your cistern will save water when flushing your toilet. Although it certainly does reduce the amount of water used, it’s probably best to not follow this advice, the problem is that over a period of time a brick will gradually break down and start to release particles that could possibly damage your cistern.

In fact there’s lots of other low priced alternative water saving devices to the brick, a popular one is to fill a plastic bottle with water and use this. This is much safer than using a brick and has pretty much the same effect without the risks to your cistern.

Just make sure that you select the right size for your cistern, a litre bottle is often a good choice plus ensure it’s sealed properly without any leaks.

Works a treat and over the years can save a considerable amount of water especially if you have those older, less efficient cisterns in your house.  It’s also nice to see something that is a symbol of litter and wastefulness – the plastic bottle being used in a positive way.

There are of course commercial options available which also have a similar effect.  There is one product called the Hippo which you place in the cistern which saves water.  This though seems to be little more than a plastic bag which retains some of the water on each flush, to be honest it seems little better than the bottle as a water saving device.

There are some other options too, if you check at your local DIY shops or plumbing supplies you can get devices which will turn older toilets into dual or variable flush cisterns.   Most of these are pretty easy to fit and don’t require replacing the cistern.  Any plumber should also be able to adapt existing toilets quickly and easily if required.

As mentioned it’s  especially important to fit one of these devices if you have an older toilet.  Some of these use over 15 liters of water which each flush whereas a modern cistern will only use about a third of that. There are lots more ideas on this post here – Ways to Save Water.

10 Things you can do to Save Water

A big part of green living comes from conserving resources wherever you can. I'm constantly on the look out for new ways to conserve things like electricity and water. Whether or not you pay a monthly water bill, doing whatever you can to save water is important and the right thing to do.

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