Are you being smart about water conservation? Do you consider yourself an environmentally conscious person? Well, how do you wash your car? Do you do it in your driveway? If you wash your car in your driveway with a garden hose and shut-off nozzle, you will use five gallons of water to fill your soap bucket to get suds. You will then wet down your car for two minutes or more, soap your car and then rinse the car for four minutes or more. If the garden hose has 60 PSI of pressure or more it puts out a minimum of ten gallons of water per minute (GPM). The total amount of water usage is as follows: 5 Gallons in the bucket plus 20 Gallons to wet the car @ 10 GPM plus 40 Gallons to rinse the car @ 10 GPM equals 65 Gallons of water This would be a very water conscious person in good shape who can move briskly around the car. This person would have at least sixty gallons moving down the gutter into the storm drain. One way to better conserve water is to use Dry Wash if your car is not too dirty. Another is to use a personal pressure washer, which start at about $80.00 at Wal-Mart or a deluxe unit for $600.00 at Home Depot. These units can help you conserve water when washing around the house no matter what you are cleaning today. We all need to do our part at work, at home and teaching our kids respect for the water supplies. When washing your car think about your water usage, try to conserve and cut down the use. Wash your car on the lawn so the water is helping the grass. Fill up the soap bucket half way; the more suds you use the water it takes to rinse. Be smart, teach your family water saving methods around the house. If we all do a little it will add up to a lot. Think about it. |
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