Water Rebates

If there aren't enough April showers, you may need sprinklers to encourage the May flowers. It's approaching the time of year when home gardeners are attaching hoses and resetting the sprinklers. That also means your water company and city could be keeping a closer eye on your water usage.

Rebates for outdoor water savings

Santa Rosa and several other northern California cities have adopted new water-efficient landscaping rules. Municipalities also are offering rebates for a range of water saving measures - in the yard and the home.

Notably, Santa Rosa offers rebates for greywater reuse, or the channeling of water from bathroom sinks and showers into the landscaping. This is a major shift from just last spring, when the state still all but outlawed greywater reuse. In August 2009, in the throes of a severe drought, the state passed a new law allowing residential greywater reuse, and this will be the first summer with the new standards in place.

This year's rebate is also a first for Santa Rosa. A single-fixture greywater system flowing from a bathtub or other source to the yard can cost as little as $200, and the city offers up to $75 per fixture.

Arizona, which is always arid, has long allowed greywater reuse, but other states are slow to catch up. Several dry western states still ban rainwater harvesting. Under dizzyingly complex western water laws, the water flowing out of your toilets is not necessarily yours to keep or reuse. For those areas where it is legal, here is some information we published last year about saving and reusing rainwater that falls on your roof and property.

In addition to such rebate carrots, cities also use sticks to encourage water savings. Water problems aren't unique to the western United States. Many Florida cities have year-round watering restrictions. St. Petersburg recently switched to "severe" water restrictions, enforcing a $175 fine for watering a lawn more than once a week.

Rebates for indoor water savings

There are opportunities for money-saving indoor water efficiency, too, including rebates for water-saving toilets and efficient washing machines. A recent survey of Portland, Oregon, remodeling experts showed water-saving toilets and washing machines are among the top five green upgrades for homeowners.

All toilets installed since 1994 use less than 1.4 gallons per flush. Newer toilets can use less than 1 gallon per flush. Britain's Propelair is working on a toilet that uses less than one-third of a gallon per flush, but the models are not on the market yet. In the meantime, look into a dual-flush toilet (or conversion kit). Some use just 0.8 gallons per flush for, ahem, liquid waste, but a full 1.6 gallons for solid waste.

Also check with your local utility or water company. It may be giving away low-flow showerheads to encourage efficiency. Xcel Energy sent me a free new showerhead last year. Not only does it use far less water, but showers feel better. But don't take longer showers just because you're saving water. That kind of defeats the purpose.

Posted by: Steve Graham