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Weekly advice from Mike Hazinski, an EBMUD water conservation veteran
Protect your pipes from freezing
Replace your irrigation timer battery
Get in the Hydrozone
Switch to a high-efficiency clothes washer
Have a green holiday Water Your Lawn Only As Needed November began with some rain in our region, but then came unseasonably warm and sunny days. You may need to water your garden between rain storms--but not very frequently. During last week’s record-breaking temperatures, a lawn in our area needed a half-inch of water or less. Even if the lawn surface appears dry, there may be enough moisture left in the soil from the latest rain to meet the need. A simple way to test if your lawn needs water is to walk on it. If the surface is dry and the blades of grass don’t pop back up, thus leaving footprints, your lawn probably needs water. Don’t be tempted to go back to your regular watering schedule. Water once, turn your irrigation system off, and hope for rain again soon. If it doesn’t rain for another week, walk on your lawn again and let it “tell you” if it needs more water. Use Commercial Car Washes That Recycle Current water use restrictions prohibit car washing except with hoses that have shut-off nozzles. Frugal car washing can reduce your usage to about 25 gallons per car wash--or less. Free shut-off nozzles are available from EBMUD. Commercial car washes with water recycling systems also average about 25 gallons per wash. An important difference is that washing your car at home sends pollutants to the street and down a storm drain which leads to the bay and ocean. Commercial car wash water is first pretreated to remove some grit and oils. Then it flows to a wastewater treatment plant, where pollutants are removed before the water is discharged. Car wash water recycling works Lafayette Car Wash in Lafayette is one of many East Bay Area car washes that recycles water. They have a system that recycles 50 to 60 percent of the water it uses, and all but the final rinse water is recycled. By improving the efficiency of the system over time, they are washing the same number of cars with about half the water, down to 25 gallons per car. Turn Off Your Irrigation Timer The storms that began our rainy season do not mean that the drought is over. But rain does mean that your automatic irrigation timer should be turned off. It’s easy to forget this simple step. Your timer should have a switch marked “off” or “rain.” Set it in the off position. Unless your outdoor plants are sheltered by an overhang or awning, you should not have to water them until April. Have success with your irrigation timer A family in San Ramon participated in a free water conservation survey at their residence to get some help with landscape irrigation. EBMUD staff recommended a watering schedule and helped reset the irrigation timer. Water usage was reduced by more than half. Our thanks to them for having us visit, and congratulations to them on exceeding their water savings goal. Insulate Your Hot Water Pipes Unless you are a hardy Spartan, accustomed to bathing in cold water, you probably send water and energy down the drain just waiting to warm up the shower. Water and energy efficiency are interconnected. Saving hot water also saves the gas or electricity needed to heat it. Some people catch warm-up water in a bucket to use later on their landscaping. That’s great, but water is heavy to carry, and this may not be practicable for everyone. Here are a few easier things you can do to save: First, fully open just the hot water faucet. It’s the fastest way to bring hot water to the point of use. Second, insulate exposed hot water pipes, especially those closest to the water heater. Water will stay warm much longer between uses. Look for pipe insulation at your hardware or home improvement store. Third, if it takes longer that a minute or two to get hot water, consider installing a hot-water-on-demand system. These systems automatically return the cold water in the hot water line back to the water heater. (Beware of hot water recirculation systems, however: these waste a lot of energy compared to the value of water saved.) Time to replace lawns and annuals? It’s fall planting time…but maybe not this year! Rather than beginning a new round of planting, consider putting in “hardscape” like decks, walls, patios and paths. Use boulders or cobbles to define future planting beds or form a dry stream of stone. Work the soil, improve drainage, put in a more water-efficient irrigation system, then mulch heavily--and wait for dry times to end. Take advantage of our landscape rebate for converting to a water efficient garden. If you must remove a lawn and annuals that use large amounts of water, you could do limited replacements this winter. Fortunately, there are beautiful alternative choices that survive drought years. EBMUD’s Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates shows a variety of colorful, sustainable landscapes. A restaurant serves up savings Behind the scenes where you go out to eat, food preparation, refrigeration, ice making, air conditioning, dish washing, and general cleanup add up to a lot of water use. But there is no reason to sacrifice a nice evening out because of the drought. Cugini Ristorante e Pizzeria in Albany serves water only upon request, has reduced the number of dish rack loads and is undertaking other conservation measures – achieving a 30 percent reduction in water use, well above the 12 percent goal for commercial customers. Molto bene! Tell Us About Leaks and Seepage EBMUD works hard to minimize leakage from the water distribution system serving your homes and businesses. Pipes do age, and the ground shifts, so there is bound to be some leakage. We repair most leaks within seven days--serious main breaks within 24 hours. You can help us by reporting leaks and seepage. Sometimes it takes investigation to identify the source of water appearing on the surface. It could be natural ground water (even in the dry season) or seepage from a leak far away. If the leak is difficult to identify, EBMUD tests the water. We use special leak detection equipment to pinpoint leaks before digging up the street to fix them. Berkeley household goes underground…to save water. Small underground leaks sometimes run for years before they grow large enough to appear on the surface. EBMUD uses sophisticated technology that “listens” for leaks and locates them before they become large and bubble up. The equipment used for finding water distribution pipe leaks can also detect leaks in the water pipe between a meter and a building. A major houseline leak was recently detected at a local residence. Apparently it had been running for three years, wasting approximately 500,000 gallons of water. When our crew realized that the leak was on a houseline and not on an EBMUD pipe, they immediately notified the homeowners. The owners quickly replaced the failing houseline, saving millions of gallons from being wasted and preventing potential property damage. Use Your Meter to Find Leaks Serious leaks can occur undetected around your home or business. Sometimes leaks surface far away from the source: you may not see them at all. Look first for wet spots or seepage. These may indicate a leak in your irrigation system or in the pipe that runs from the meter to the building. (It is called the house line.) To be sure you have no leaks, check your water meter. It’s usually located between the sidewalk and the street in a concrete box with an EBMUD logo on the lid. Use the slot in the meter box cover to carefully lift the lid and expose the meter. Shut off all your water using fixtures and note the exact location of the meter dial needles. (The test-needle on a straight-reading meter looks like a second hand. On a round-reading meter look for the “one foot” dial.) Place a pin or a toothpick on top of the meter exactly in line with the test needle. Wait half an hour. If the needles have moved you probably have a leak. Some meters have a little red triangle that spins when water is flowing through the meter. If that’s moving, you do have a leak. The next step is to locate the shutoff valve where the water line enters the building. Turn that off and check the meter again. If the dials still move, you probably have a leak outside in the house line. Fixing it can be expensive, but in the long run, the leak will only get worse and cost you more than fixing it right away. See our latest bill insert for more on repairing home leaks. Leak repair at Applebee’s Nets Quick Savings It can be difficult to find and repair some leaks because of their location. Water was appearing in a landscaped area at the Applebee’s restaurant in Pinole. After some investigation, it was determined that the leak was in a water line in a concrete slab foundation. Applebee’s took the initiative and did repairs, which involved cutting through concrete. That work is saving about 6,000 gallons per day. Applebee’s is one of many businesses that have contributed to our communities’ efforts to reach our water savings goals. Is Your Household Water Efficient? To find out, read the bottom of your water bill or view your personal water use information online. Your home's water consumption is listed in gallons per day. Looking ahead: Your consumption for the billing periods ending in January or February should reflect indoor use only (it is not necessary to water your lawn and garden during the rainy season). Divide the gallons per day by the number of people residing in your household. If you are using 50 gallons per day or less per person, your household is water efficient. If you use between 50 and 100 gallons per day per
person you should be more careful about your water use or upgrade to
more efficient fixtures and appliances. If you use more than 100
gallons each per day, you may have a leak--or your automatic irrigation
system may have been left running unnecessarily. It’s time to start watering your lawn and garden one less day a week. Summer is over and its time for an autumn watering schedule. EBMUD drought emergency regulations prohibit watering more than three days per week. As fall approaches, one or two days per week will do even for thirsty lawns. Most trees and shrubs will need a good watering only once or twice a month. In our climate, heat waves can occur well into October. Even so, your plants don’t need nearly as much water because daylight hours are shorter and the sun is not as high in the sky. Adjust your irrigation timer accordingly or, if you water by hand, just spend a little more time in the hammock. Upgrade your timer Self-adjusting irrigation controllers are available
that can take the work out of making seasonal adjustments. These products
look a lot like conventional irrigation timers but they use either weather
sensors or satellite signals to receive current weather information and
automatically adjust the watering schedule. They also can automatically
create an irrigation schedule for your landscape based on the actual plant,
soil, and sprinkler system type and other factors that determine how you
should water. EBMUD customers may be eligible for a $100 to $500 rebate for
the purchase of qualifying products.
Click here
for more information. Let Your Dishwasher Do the Work Don’t pre rinse your dishes when loading your dishwasher. Instead, scrape the food waste from your plates, pots, and pans into a recycling container and minimize use of the kitchen garbage disposal. Today’s automatic dishwashers are designed so that pre rinsing is not necessary as long as you don’t let food dry and harden on the dishes. Hand washing of dishes uses much more water than automatic dishwashers. Washing a full dishwasher load by hand can use 27 gallons – automatic dishwashers use 4 to 8 gallons per load. For most households, this can easily amount to over 4,500 gallons of water saved annually. But that’s not all: you save energy from heating less water, reduce the amount of waste you send to a landfill, and prevent fats, oils, and grease from causing sewer line backups that can pollute your home and our waterways. Now how can you beat that? Cycling is Best for Lawns One of the problems with automatic lawn sprinklers is that they apply water faster than the soil can absorb it. Especially on a slope, water quickly runs off onto pavement and into gutters. During the drought, EBMUD water use restrictions prohibit lawn or garden watering that results in excessive runoff. Here is a way to get more water to your lawn’s roots where it’s useful: Divide the day’s lawn watering into multiple cycles. For example, if you need to water for 15 minutes on your watering day, break it up into three five-minute cycles with an hour in between each cycle. Your automatic irrigation timer probably has this function and you should use it whether or not your lawn is on a slope. If you don’t know how long and how often to water your lawn. Watering Your Lawn Wisely Did you know that leaks can account for up to 30
percent of indoor household water use?
Checking for silent leaks is easy!
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Mike's Tips