A dripping tap

A wise man once wrote that a nagging wife and the constant dripping of water are alike. I thank the Lord every day that I don't have the former, however upon taking ownership of our new house five days ago I discovered we have the latter in the form of a dripping tap in the bathroom.

Since I was neither equipped nor ready to replace the washer, I put the plug in the bath and left it. This temporary damming was to figure out how much water was being wasted, and to catch it for watering the garden later. After roughly 5 days of dripping the bath was full!

The almost full bath

A quick web search revealed that a standard bathtub holds approximately 200 litres of water. A simple sum reveals that the previous owner was wasting about 1200 litres of water a month and that just in the master bathroom.

Over the few days we have had the house we have found 3 more leaking taps. Amazingly (or perhaps worryingly) two of the taps have algae growing in the micro river course created by the dripping water. It would seem that the previous owner was DIY averse. When we texted her to find out where the water meter and shutoff valve were I got the impression that she had never turned off the water in the 10 years she lived in the house. I wonder for how many years these taps have been dripping?

According to the Rand Water website, demand for water in South Africa will outstrip supply in 2025. They are promoting various water saving initiatives to try stretch the water the country does have. These initiatives however are unlikely to be enough and eventually South Africa will have to increase supply (perhaps by building more dams or finding alternative sources, e.g. desalination).

In the 80's two economists postulated that increased energy efficiency would lead to an increase in demand for energy. This paradoxical idea is called the Khazzoom-Brookes postulate. The explanation for the increased use is as follows (from wikipedia): "Increased energy efficiency can increase energy consumption by three means. Firstly, increased energy efficiency makes the use of energy relatively cheaper, thus encouraging increased use. Secondly, increased energy efficiency leads to increased economic growth, which pulls up energy use in the whole economy. Thirdly, increased efficiency in any one bottleneck resource multiplies the use of all the companion technologies, products and services that were being restrained by it."

Whether this can be directly applied to the South African water situation can be debated, however I think what's clear is that individuals and companies have an obligation to save water where we can while also lobbying local government to increase the supply.

I will be fixing the dripping taps at my new house and installing a tank to collect rain water for watering the garden. What are you doing to save water?