Do you know the water cost when you buy a gallon at the grocery store? Would you take shorter showers, only water your lawn at night or wash you car less, if you knew the water cost? Americans have demonstrated that we are price sensitive, and drive less when the price of gasoline goes up?
When there's a drought, headlines get us to focus on water or the lack of, for a few days or weeks. For the most part though, we take our fresh water supply for granted, as we do the proper functioning of our home's electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling systems.
In 2006 I bought a 4 cylinder Rav4, to save gas. It wasn't long before my decision made sense to everyone, when the cost of gas went over $4.00 per gallon. You can wait for water costs to go up like gasoline, or you can start saving water today!
Technology Tells Us Water Cost
If you have a well (most of us don't) you might know your water cost. You can amortize the cost of digging the well and the monthly energy cost to pump water from your well. Most homeowners though, turn on the tap and the water comes out. We rarely know where the water comes from or the cost (installation and operation) of the infrastructure that delivers fresh water to our home.
A new concept and company which I learned about from FastCompany's article, A New Point System Lets You Measure The Sustainability Impact Of Anything. EnergyPoints (map below) is developing software to help us understand our true water cost, which varies across the US. Their goal is to help companies and local/regional government agencies decide on the most sustainable investments, i.e. someday you might “… buy a house, and have an energy-per-gallon rating of 25 and know what that means”.
Green Homes Save Energy, Water and More
While today's focus is on saving energy, we'll soon need to focus on saving water too. While water covers roughly 70 percent of the earth's surface, less than 1 percent of this water can be used by people and that's a scary thought. The EPA is projecting at least 36 states will have water shortages by 2013, and that's without drought conditions. This concept would help all of us understand water cost in a way we could relate to, one we could remember each time we left the tap water running while brushing our teeth!
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