Conserving water in the bathroom
Between the toilet and the shower, the bathroom is the biggest source of water usage in the home. Here's what you can do to make your bathroom water-wiser.

Toilet
Assess the size of the water tank on your toilet. Some old toilets have large tanks that use four or more gallons of water per flush. Place a one-gallon jug of water into the tank. This will reduce the amount of water used per flush by one gallon.

If you are ready to upgrade to a new toilet, consider one with a dual-flush system. Dual-flush toilets use less than one gallon of water to flush liquid waste, and less than two gallons to flush solid waste.

Shower
Depending on the type of showerhead you have, a 10-minute shower can use as many as 35 gallons of water. That not only wastes a lot of water, it also requires a lot of energy to heat the water up.

Solution: Convert to an aerating showerhead. Unlike typical showerheads, which use 2.5 to 3.5 gallons of water per minute, aerating showerheads use only two gallons per minute. So the same 10-minute shower will use only 20 gallons of water. Aerating showerheads add air pressure to the water, so your shower will feel just as powerful as it did before. At about $10, an aerating showerhead is an investment that will pay for itself in less than a year, and it will yield savings for many years to come.

Conserving water in the kitchen
Whether you wash dishes by hand, with a dishwasher or both, these simple steps will help you reduce water use while saving energy.

Sink
When washing dishes or produce in the sink, stopper your basin or use a tub and scrub the items in a pool of water all at once. Cleaning dishes or vegetables one by one beneath a constant stream of running tap water uses more energy, more water and takes longer, too.

Installing a "local" heater that's dedicated to your kitchen sink is another great way to conserve water and energy. A small pump brings water to the local heater. At the touch of a button, it heats your water before you turn on your tap -- no more wasting water by running it while waiting for the tap to heat.

Dishwasher
Run your dishwasher only when it's full. For best performance, choose a dishwasher that's been "Energy Star" approved. Energy Star appliances are certified by the Environmental Protection Agency as being energy-efficient and eco-friendly.

Conserving water in the garden
By some estimates, water usage more than doubles in the summertime, in large part because so many people are watering their lawns and gardens. The good news is that reducing your outdoor water needs is easy.

Water your lawn and garden longer, but less often, so grass and plants develop deeper roots, and forgo watering altogether if you've had a good soaking rain in the past week. Keeping grass two inches or longer helps shade roots and conserve water.

You might also consider letting your lawn go brown. The grass doesn't truly die; it just goes dormant. It will turn green and lush again when there's more rain. If you have more grass than you need, consider relandscaping with drought-resistant native plants. After the first year or two, the plants will need little or no water to look their best.

... And don't forget the car
Take your car to a car-wash service instead of washing it yourself. Since water is one of their bigger expenses, car-wash businesses use equipment that is designed to minimize water use and recycle water whenever possible.