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I thought 130 litres/person was quiet high and probably included things like water to grow vegetables, but no, one shower is between 30 et 50 litres and each ti
by Kayou 9y ago
I thought 130 litres/person was quiet high and probably included things like water to grow vegetables, but no, one shower is between 30 et 50 litres and each time you go to the bathroom, it's 10 litres of drinkable water.
Of course, I you have saltwater and no freshwater, you would probably use saltwater in your toilets, so that could reduce the daily usage of at least 20 litres. But then, if you consider agriculture and manufacturing, I guess that the number of 130litres/person would blow up completely.
- positivecomment 9y agoMaybe people can also shower with saltwater followed by a quick rinse in drinkable water. That would reduce the usage drastically. I couldn't find anything against showering with saltwater by skimming the results of a naive google search.
- maxerickson 9y agoYou can get about the same effect by running the water to get wet, turning it off while washing and then back on for rinsing (the infamous "navy shower"). I imagine the biggest strike against showering with salt water is that you'd need treatment, supply and heating dedicated to the salt tap. And then the salt water is busy corroding all the infrastructure devoted to it.
- dhimes 9y agoTurning off the shower while I am soaping is now second-nature to me, like turning off the water while brushing teeth. I highly recommend it.
- glenneroo 9y agoGoing even further, I switched early last year to not using soap at all (except for extreme dirt which warm water couldn't remove) and my showers are done in 1-3 minutes (depending if I wash my hair or not). My girlfriend also says I smell better (and not like various soaps). Also related, a chemical engineer from MIT started a company[0] back in 2013 purporting that showering kills our healthy bacteria. Supposedly he hasn't showered in 13 years, although their latest product recommends "rinsing in the shower for 3 minutes" followed by spraying their product on your body. [0]http://aobiome.com http://aobiome.com
- goda90 9y agoHow much do you exercise? I've heard that athletes often don't need to wear deodorant, because they sweat so much during practice that there isn't a build of of odor causing bacteria.
- com2kid 9y ago> I've heard that athletes often don't need to wear deodorant, because they sweat so much during practice that there isn't a build of of odor causing bacteria. As someone who spends ~3 hours a day doing vigorous exercise, there is no way this is true. I smell awful afterwards.
- goda90 9y agoBut how do you smell after you shower it off? It could also be that people who exercise a lot might be less likely to sweat outside of exercise time.
- com2kid 9y ago> It could also be that people who exercise a lot might be less likely to sweat outside of exercise time. Nope, I sweat pretty profusely throughout the day. Antiperspirant keeps me a part of civilization. FWIW I'm at a healthy weight and in good shape, just genetics.
- glenneroo 9y agoUsually 2-4 times per week, but mostly just weekends. Definitely not athlete material (anymore at least). When I'm properly sweaty it generally isn't pleasant, especially when it dries. I should have also noted that I haven't used deodorant in at least 10 years. Maybe I just got lucky and won the genetic lottery in regards to smelly bacteria.
- knodi123 9y agoI wish this was feasible, but in our house the water takes 5 minutes to get to the shower from the water heater, and if you turn it off for more than a minute, you'll get wild temperature fluctuations over the next 5 minutes while it re-achieves a stable mix. I think this is just one more reason to install an on-demand water heater rather than have a giant monolith in your garage.
- goda90 9y agoAlternatively you could take lukewarm or cold showers. In the very least you save energy, and many claim it is invigorating, better for your skin, burns calories for those trying to lose weight, helps adapt you to cold weather, etc. Not a fun experience the first few times though.
- knodi123 9y agocold is agony. I have no interest in "adapting", and broaching the idea to my wife is a complete non-starter. And lukewarm is exactly the same problem; 5 minutes to get that temperature, and some minutes to get it back if you leave the water off. I am looking for a solution, not for someone to try convincing my entire family that we should prefer the problem. :-P On-demand water heaters, or electric pre-pumps, or a needle valve with continuous return, are the three viable solutions, period.
- dhimes 9y agoI wonder if there is a way to better insulate the pipes so they don't lose their heat so much. That's pretty unusual. Five minutes is a long time for water to run down a pipe- you must be running 75ft or so of pipe- so insulation is the other answer (the first being the on-demand water heater in the shower- I used one once and had no problem with it, and it may be more efficient anyway).
- regularfry 9y agoThis doesn't work with electric showers. The element retains heat and the water trapped in it gets extremely hot, so you get scalded when you turn it back on. Ask me how I know, go on...
- maxerickson 9y agoIn the context of this discussion, retrofitting a heater with a better thermostat would probably be more practical than retrofitting a saltwater shower.
- tdb7893 9y agoCan you use fresh and saltwater in the same pipes? I feel like they would need to stay separate and having all the infrastructure duplicated and appliances able to switch between the two sounds expensive.
- oftenwrong 9y agoIn HK there is a separate water system for sea water, and homes that use it for flushing toilets do have a second set of pipes. The additional cost of this complexity must be weighed against the value of having enough clean water for daily life.
- unethical_ban 9y agoThe trick is disposing of the saltwater. Consider that depending on the locale, wastewater might be put back into the water table or else treated for bacteria then let back into the environment. Saltwater saturating our soils, water table or even being too concentrated in a bay would affect the ecosystem negatively. Source: Someone who isn't an expert in waste management or ecology.
- stult 9y agoWouldn't salt water in toilets require two sets of pipes leading into each home? Seems like an expensive proposition unless you're building a new community from scratch.
- Jedd 9y agoIt does, but it isn't. Similarly multiple out-going pipes to split off various levels of grey waste (some direct to garden, others, to soakways, or to septic processing systems). Capex for these kinds of systems is ultimately dwarfed by savings on opex - just like we find with mandatory double-glazing & other insulation regulations.
- nerdponx 9y agoMakes sense. But out of curiosity, where are you getting that info? Personal experience? Research in some field?
- Jedd 9y agoMostly personal experience including some stories from permaculture types who've been approaching these problems for a while. I'm designing a habitat that will have an additional complication of both low-pressure gravity fed and electric-pump (city pressure) circuits. Regulations lag behind optimum configuration, though parts of EU, especially in the north, legislated triple-glazing (f.e.) quite a few years ago (can't find a cost analysis of break-even points, unfortunately). I'm sure there's plenty of assumptions wrapped up in these regulations around estimated abode longevity, energy pricing over that period, etc. But as to multiple water sources into abodes, I haven't seen much formal work on it. I think the idea gets touted in London periodically - it'd be a nice solution to the dual problems of high water table and (surprisingly) occasional potable water shortages. But retrofitting this to an existing, massive, badly planned metropolis would be a nightmare.
- Shivetya 9y agoWell at the commercial level we certainly could and it has been done though most of the uses I have seen are to golf courses and certain parks. certainly large commercial buildings could have a separate set of pipes to provide toilets with water. now what should be more easily done is require building codes to insure large complexes have separate gray and black water pipes so that easier to treat water is routed better.
- thatwebdude 9y agoWe (as a society) really need to be pushing more efficient water appliances. I looked up liters to gallons since I'm backwards and - in case anyone else is too - 10 liters is ~2.5 gallons. I replaced three toilest in my home that were flushing ~4 gallons with each flush with ones that flush with 1.28 gallons now. They are much more powerful than the previous ones I had, and use (liter-wise) less than half of the 10-liter mark. Do your efficient toilets overseas not get down to the 4-6 liter range per flush? The switch to more efficient toilets really made a big impact on my water bill for barely a dent to the wallet.
- jacquesm 9y agoHow much do you pay for water? Did you calculate the pay-back time of those new toilets?
- refurb 9y agoJust as a reference point, in SF, the first three "units" of water (748 gallons), costs $6.42/unit. Or $0.009 per gallon. After that, $0.011 per gallon. That doesn't include things like delivery fees, sewer charges, etc.
- thatwebdude 9y agoNo idea. I'm more about less waste though, so that and the home renovation was what sold me. Self-install so the cost was relatively low. http://www.hcsa.us/files/What-does-my-toilet-really-cost-me.pdf http://www.hcsa.us/files/What-does-my-toilet-really-cost-me....
- nsxwolf 9y agoNewer toilets in the US are only allowed 6 liters max.
- logfromblammo 9y agoAnd those toilets can never seem to handle my #2s. You're not saving anything if you have to flush 2-3 times and use a plunger every time. Regulating the volume of the tank is useless unless you also define a test standard for functionality. It's like saying that cars have to meet a minimum mileage standard without also specifying that they have to be able to maintain 60 mph while going up a 10% grade. Except in that situation, cars that do not meet the implicit minimum consumer standard don't get purchased off the lot. In houses, the person who buys the toilet is more likely planning to repackage it into an entire house and resell it to someone else than use it personally. So your toilet might look like a full-sized sedan, but have a go-kart engine under the hood. They just bolted a smaller tank onto a base that was designed for a larger flush volume. So what those toilets are allowed de jure is not necessarily lowering de facto water use. Yes, there are toilets out there that were redesigned for low flush volumes, and they do save water, but they have not displaced the letter-of-the-law, flush-it-twice toilets in the construction of cut-every-possible-corner suburban subdivisions.
- e12e 9y agoIf you have plentiful access to salt water, it might be worth it to use that for "black water" (sewage).