Figuring your water use: converting cubic feet to gallons
While some of you are already dashing merrily through the snow, down here in the Southeast, despite cooler temps, we’re still dealing with a water shortage of unprecedented levels. Most communities in Northeast Georgia are now being asked to restrict their water use to activities that are essential for health and safety.
The moto here in Athens is “Think at the sink,” and apparently, people are, because collectively — between the university (UGA’s main campus is located here, with an enrollment of about 35,000 students), local businesses and residents — we have managed to reduce our overall consumption in the last couple of months by an unprecedented 35 percent.
This doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods; it just means we might, at the current level of draw-down, have enough water to last until Spring when the seasonal rains will begin to restore water levels to less scary levels (we hope).
Here at the ranch house, we’ve been doing our bit, too. We were already washing only full loads of laundry, shutting off the faucet when brushing our teeth, taking short showers, “letting it mellow,” recycling the dogs’ drinking water to the houseplants, etc., but last month, we figured we could easily save more with two additional changes: we started showering with a bucket in the tub to collect run-off from the shower, and we started using a dish-pail to rinse our dishes, and then using that collected water to flush the toilet. This is a 1970s ranch house and the toilets haven’t been upgraded yet. We know by today’s standards they’re water hogs, so we figured every flush we could do manually was bound to help. Boy, did it! When the bill came in, we were shocked.
The latest water bill is our all-time lowest bill since we moved here, a mere 199 cubic feet, down from a six-month average of 542 cubic feet per month. Here’s what that means in gallons.
The formula is simple: one cubic foot of water equals 7.48 gallons. I multiplied the number of cubic feet of water we used last month, 199, times 7.48, and came up with 1,488.52 gallons. In a figure I can understand better than cubic feet, that tells me two people and four pets used under 1500 gallons of water in October. Down from a monthly average of 4,054 gallons for the previous six months.
That’s huge. I’m psyched. Try that formula out. The numbers really talk.
