Saving water in the bathroom

Here are a few examples of how you can save water in the bathroom.

Flush less away

In a regular toilet installed before 1993, every time you flush, 9-11 litres of water go down the pan which over a year adds up to 50,000 litres for the average household. It's thought that the average trip to the toilet only requires 40-50% of the amount of water that we actually use.

There are lots of ways you can address this but each method works in the same way; using water displacement. If you put a suitable object in the cistern you can displace a litre of water each time saving you up to 5,000 litres a year.

Here are a few things you can use as water displacement devices:

  • A brick wrapped in bubble-wrap or a carrier bag (the plastic coating will protect the brick from crumbling or mould);
  • A large margarine tub filled with water and sealed or a large plastic bottle prepared in the same way;
  • A cistern displacement device such as a Water Hippo® or the Interflush® fitting. Note that Water Hippos are only designed to be used in cisterns that use 9 litres or more with every flush.

Replace your toilet

If your toilet is ready to be replaced anyway, you'll easily be able to get a dual-flush one fitted as standard which saves you water and money anyway. Toilets installed before 1993 have an average cistern size that uses 9.5 litres per flush and since 1993 that was reduced to 7.5 litres. Nowadays, you can get cisterns which use just 1-2 litres of water with every flush.

Changing your toilet can save you around 10 litres a day.

Save while you brush

Don't leave the tap running while brushing your teeth. We could save enough water to supply 500,000 homes if the adult population of England and Wales remembered to turn the tap off between brushes! It would also save you 9 litres a day.

Shower instead of bathe

This is probably the most obvious way you could save on water, every time you have a bath you use 80 -150 litres of water. In a single use, this is the largest amount of water you can consume, more than a washing machine or dishwasher. However, if you use a power shower on its maximum setting you may consume more water than having a bath.