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Many local governments now have laws that specify that water faucets, toilets, and showers only allow a certain amount of water flow per minute. Water agencies in some areas, such as here in Atlanta, Georgia, offer rebates if you install a water-efficient toilet. It’s worth getting a professional to look at leaking appliances, rather than attempting to fix them yourself.
Instead, the average household water usage for a home of 2 works out at around 138 gallons. Also, be mindful that your household water use can be directly proportional to the number of people living in your area. States with populations that have grown the most rapidly tend to have average water usage per person that runs above the average.
Replace Old Inefficient Appliances
An average of two gallons of drinking water flows out of a standard tap per minute. If you get into the habit of turning off the tap whenever you use water to brush your teeth, wash your hands or do your dishes, you can save between three and four gallons of drinking water in a single day. The average American family has the potential to save up to 1,000 gallons per year alone from this easy hack.
This is an estimate, but it gives you an idea of how the little things you do in your house add up to larger amounts of water being used. If you have newer water-saving devices in your home you will probably be using less than this number. The United States is deemed the “Land of Plenty,” partly for its abundant water resources. It’s home to the largest freshwater lake system worldwide , which holds six quadrillion gallons of water. And let’s not forget the mighty Mississippi River, which flows at around 4.4 million gallons per second, supplying water to about 15 million people along the way. Droughts happen somewhere in the country every year and climate change has the potential to increase stress on water resources.
Average Indoor Water Use by Fixture
Old dishwashers and washers can have a big impact on your annual water consumption. Even if you’re minimizing the wasted drinking water that comes out of your taps, if your appliances aren’t efficient, you’ll still end up wasting a lot of water. The average family can save 13,000 gallons of water and $130 in water costs per year by replacing all old, inefficient toilets in their home with WaterSense labeled models. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average family wastes roughly 180 gallons of water each week due to residential water leaks or plumbing leaks.
Wait until you look at the environmental factors that impact water usage. These daily averages may be used to calculate the average water consumption cost per person, per week, or per month for each appliance. Water Research Foundation conducted a survey around average household water usage across the U.S. The report found the following breakdown of average daily household water usage.
WaterSense & Water Savings
If you think you might have a leak in your plumbing system, download our Leak Detection Kit to learn more about locating and fixing leaks. Replacing your old toilet models with WaterSense-labeled models can save 13,000 gallons of water per year, which is the equivalent of about $130. Replacing inefficient bathroom faucets can lead to an average savings of $250 over the faucets’ lifetime.
To create a more sustainable water future, cities and states are coming together to encourage water conservation and efficiency as a way to reduce demand. An easy to way to understand individual water use is to look at your water bill—not just the amount due, but how much water you used. Once you understand how much you use, the WaterSense calculator can help determine how much water your household could save if you switched to more efficient, WaterSense labeled products. Fire-fighting, municipal parks, and public swimming pools all need lots of water. An array of pipes, canals, and pumping stations managed by our public water systems are needed to bring a reliable supply of water to our taps each day.
Washington
Spread across a regular 31-day month, that means the average American uses 2,542 gallons of water every single month. The answer isn’t as simple as “yes” or “no.” For starters, the agriculture business, which consumes 70% of all clean drinking water globally, is the world’s largest user of water usage. A significant amount of water is used to grow food for cattle, making livestock one of the most water-intensive industries in the United States. Drought reduces the quantity of water usage in our local reservoirs, limiting the amount of water that can be carried to our houses and the amount of water that can be dispensed from our taps. Even a little leak in a pipe can impair your home’s water pressure, especially if the line is closer to your home’s point of entry and serves all of your appliances and faucets.
This simple hack has the potential to save an average American family up to 1,000 gallons per year. Likewise, newer dishwashers and clothes washers use water much more efficiently than older models. Water efficient dishwashers save more than 5,000 gallons of water per year compared with washing dishes by hand . Newer washing machines handle much bigger loads of clothing with much less water. A full-sized ENERGY STAR-certified clothes washer uses 13 gallons of water per load, compared to the 23 gallons used by a standard machine, saving over 3,000 gallons of water per year.
Approximately 25 percent of freshwater withdrawals, totaling 82 billion gallons per day, was from groundwater. Based on the most recent data available from the United States Geological Survey , Americans used an estimated 322 billion gallons of fresh and saline water per day in 2015. That means on any given day in that year, Americans withdrew enough water to fill 1,163 Empire State Buildings. Until more current data becomes available, we can assume that those numbers have probably increased somewhat over the past few years. The Earth might seem like it has abundant water, but in fact less than 1 percent is available for human use.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the cost of drought is second only to the cost of hurricanes, with a total loss and destruction of $9.6 billion in a single occurrence. The Guardian, “about one in nine of the planet’s population – lack access to clean, affordable water within half an hour of their homes”. When the daily recommended water intake in the USA is half a gallon, it can be difficult to comprehend how a household of two people can use this much water. For example, a person who lives alone is less likely to use a dishwasher to wash their plates, and they are also less likely to wash clothes multiple times a day. EnergyStar clothes washers not only save a lot of water but also save electricity.
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