Water is a valu­able resource – par­tic­u­lar­ly in Cen­tral Aus­tralia. Alice Springs Town Coun­cil is com­mit­ted to con­serv­ing water, and offer res­i­dents the fol­low tips to help save water and money.

You can also down­load a PDF ver­sion of this here.

Water Sav­ing Tips in the Home

Show­ers

Mod­ern show­er­heads can pro­duce a high-qual­i­ty show­er expe­ri­ence by only using 4 L/​minute. What does your show­er­head do? Switch­ing to an effi­cient show­er­head can save a lot of water. If yours is not that old it might have a flowrate of 9 L/​minute. A real­ly old one could have a flowrate of 20 L/​minute.

For a fam­i­ly of four, each hav­ing one show­er a day for five min­utes going from 9 L/​min to 4 L/​min could save 36,500 litres a year! Cut your show­er from five min­utes to four min­utes and you’ll save even more at no cost. Pick a song while in show­er to cut the length.

Short show­ers save water, as well as the ener­gy costs asso­ci­at­ed with heat­ing water.

New Taps and Fittings?

Chang­ing your taps and oth­er fit­tings? Choose your fit­tings wise­ly. Make your dol­lars count by choos­ing suit­able fit­tings for the use. Effi­cient toi­lets, basins and show­ers can help you achieve your water sav­ing goals and when you have to have an upgrade is the cheap­est time to do it. 

Choose water effi­cient prod­ucts by look­ing at the Water Effi­cien­cy Labelling and Stan­dards (WELS) label that is on taps, show­ers, toi­lets, dish­wash­ers, wash­ing machines and flow controllers.

Find out more here: https://​www​.water​rat​ing​.gov​.au…

Wash­ing Machines

Most new wash­ing machines are water effi­cient. Even new top load­ing ones can have low water use. Switch­ing to a water effi­cient wash­ing machine can save you water so think about chang­ing to a more water effi­cient machine next time you need to upgrade. In the mean­time, always wash a full load to save on your water bill.

Bonus tip: wash­ing in cold water will save you on your ener­gy bill com­pared with hot water.

Wash­ing Dishes

It is now a well-estab­lished fact that use of a dish­wash­er can save con­sid­er­able amounts of water over the stan­dard sink wash. Again, the size of your house­hold will impact the water sav­ings from a dish­wash­er. More peo­ple equal more sav­ings! Some key things to increase the effi­cien­cy and sav­ings from using a dishwasher:

• Keep them reg­u­lar­ly ser­viced and cleaned
• Always run a full load
• Avoid exces­sive pre-rinse (or at least under a low flow tap)
• Choose a machine that will suit your house­hold size

Do you have a leak?

Water leaks often go unseen – until you get a mas­sive water bill! 

It may not seem that a drip­ping tap wastes much water, but leaks can be one of the main water wasters in the house cost­ing hun­dreds of dol­lars a year. 

Taps

Check all your taps (inside and out­side), and if there’s any leak­ing, get them fixed as soon as possible.

Toi­let

Check if you’re toi­let is leak­ing by putting a few drops of food dye in the cis­tern and don’t flush. Wait a few min­utes and if you see coloured water in your toi­let bowl, you’ve got a leak. Get it fixed as soon as possible.

Hid­den Leaks

Some­times leaks are under ground or are hid­den from view. These can lead to los­ing thou­sands of litres of water before there is any obvi­ous sign of a leak. A quick and easy check for hid­den leaks is to do a three-step leak check.

1. Make sure all the water in your house is turned off. No one is hav­ing show­ers; the wash­ing machine isn’t run­ning and the irri­ga­tion sys­tem is off.
2. Then record or take a pho­to of the num­bers on your water meter.
3. Wait for at least 15 min­utes (bet­ter one hour) and then read your meter again.

If the num­bers have changed, you prob­a­bly have a leak, so con­tact a licenced plumber.

Water Sav­ing Tips in the Community

To help ASTC save water on their next bill report a leak if you see it. Use our report­ing tool www​.Neat​Streets​.com​.au.

Friend­ly with the neigh­bours or a local busi­ness? Let them know if you see a leak in their yard. Some­thing along the lines of ​“Hi Joe, I saw the drip­per under your palm tree is leak­ing. Thought I’d let you know so you can save some water and not get a big water bill next time. Check out the handy water sav­ing tips on the Alice Springs Town Coun­cil website”.

Water Sav­ing Tips in the Garden

Know your Drippers

Alice Springs is a hot dry place but one that loves its gar­dens. A handy way to water your gar­den is with drip irri­ga­tion. Drip­pers are well suit­ed to the Alice Springs soil pro­file and reduce loss­es due to evap­o­ra­tion. But not all drip­pers are the same. Some are as low as 2L/​min and some as high as 20L/​min. Make sure you have the right drip­pers for the needs or your gar­den. A great guide is the ALEC Alice Springs Gar­den­ing Handbook.

Run the irri­ga­tion for a few min­utes a week while you’re watch­ing it to check for lost drip­per heads and split irri­ga­tion pipes.

Reduce the Pressure

Alice Springs is lucky to have pret­ty good water pres­sure which is great for a nice show­er and pop up irri­ga­tion sys­tems. But high water pres­sure can cause prob­lems with gar­den irri­ga­tion lines and drip­pers. High pres­sure can cause pipes to split and drip­per heads to blow off their fit­tings. All caus­ing more leaks.

A sim­ple fix is a pres­sure reduc­er on the tap before the irri­ga­tion con­nec­tion. These are cheap, easy to install and con­trol the pres­sure in the irri­ga­tion sys­tem for an opti­mal set up. 

Water for the Season

Alice Springs can be hot and dry, or cold and dry. Know­ing how much to water to use on the gar­den can be hard. There are lots of options out there for the advanced gar­den­er but one way to keep it sim­ple is to adjust your irri­ga­tion sched­ule to the sea­sons. Low in win­ter, medi­um in autumn and spring and high­er in sum­mer. Adjust­ing the amount of water used on your gar­den over the year can save thou­sands of litres of water and make your plants a lot hap­pi­er. Also make sure you always use mulch, it will help you to reduce water loss and heat/​cold stress on your plants. 

**Did you know you can buy cheap mulch from the Redis­cov­ery Cen­tre at the Region­al Waste Man­age­ment Facil­i­ty. This mulch is made by grind­ing up gar­den waste that’s dropped off by residents.

Water at the Right Time in the Right Place

The opti­mal time for water­ing is first thing in the morn­ing. This cre­ates the most amount of water avail­able to the plant to utilise through­out the heat of the day. Water­ing in the evening can mean water doesn’t get used by the plants when they need it most.

Make sure that the irri­ga­tion is going to the right place. With drip­pers it is easy to point the right way. Pop-up sprin­klers for lawns can be a bit trick­er. Make sure your pop-ups are water­ing the right place not over­lap­ping with oth­er sprin­kler heads or water­ing the dri­ve­way or footpath.

Water Sav­ing Tips for Pools and Spas

A lot of homes in our desert town have swim­ming pools and spas, allow­ing us to cool off dur­ing our long summers.

Max­imis­ing water sav­ing and reduc­ing water waste can be done by fol­low­ing these tips:

Reduce evap­o­ra­tion – as the major cause of water loss, pool cov­ers, blan­kets, increas­ing shade and pre­vent­ing wind exposure.

Reduce back­wash — keep your pool and fil­ter clean, only back­wash­ing every 4 – 6 weeks, and if you are replac­ing your fil­ter, get a car­tridge fil­ter rather than a sand filter.

Check for leaks — look for damp or water sat­u­rat­ed spots near the pool, pumps and plumb­ing equip­ment. Loose or cracked tiles could indi­cate a leak.

Water Sav­ing Tips for Car Washing

Alice Springs can be super dusty, so our cars need to be washed more often. Here are some quick tips to save water:

1. Wash your car in the shade on lawn or gravel.
2. Only use a hose for rins­ing – use a buck­et of soapy water.
3. Wash­ing ear­ly morn­ing or lat­er in the day will reduce water evaporation.

More Quick Tips

• Turn the tap off while you brush your teeth. 
• Catch the water from rins­ing veg­gies or wait­ing for the water to warm-up. Use it to water the gar­den or top up pet’s bowls.
• Check if you’re toi­let is leak­ing by putting a few drops of food dye in the cis­tern and don’t flush. Wait a few min­utes and if you see coloured water in your toi­let bowl, you’ve got a leak. Get it fixed as soon as possible.
• Water your gar­den first thing in the morn­ing – this is best for the plants and reduces water evaporation.
• Mulch is the best water saver in the gar­den – get some today from The Redis­cov­ery Centre.