Mod 4. Money Usage – Tyler Brackbill

Since I am currently living in State College and not at home with my family, our household water usage has definitely decreased some.  Although I am not at home with them, I will give it my best shot to estimate their water usage.  My home receives its water from our well next to the house, which obviously draws from the rainwater that soaks into the ground as well as normal ground water.  I also live on a slight hill, so water will run down the hill when it rains and will increase the amount of water that is introduced to the well. The well pump pumps the water through the hub in our basement, going through filters, heaters, and water softeners.  Our waste water goes in to our septic tank.  The septic tank releases the cleaner(?) waste water back into into the ground and the process will repeat itself over and over again.

Estimated water usage in a given day

Bath x1 = 36 gallons

Shower x2  = 60 gallons

Teeth brushing x3 = 6 gallons

Hand wash x5 = 5 gallons

Dishwasher x1 = 6 gallons

Washing machine x1 = 25 gallons

Toilet flush x7 = 14 gallons

Drinking water we get free water cooler jugs.

Analysis

It is actually really interesting to do cutbacks like this for a project.  I have done it once before but with technology where I couldn’t watch TV or use the internet except out of necessity and I’m sure you know how that went.

I tried to do my own personal cutbacks up here at school because I live a similar lifestyle up here as compared to at home.  I decided to try “military showers” which are about 2 minutes and don’t always include hot water.  Brushing my teeth: I didn’t leave the water running the whole time.  I would rinse once at the beginning and the end.  Instead of using the apartment dishwasher with my roommates, I would fill the sink a little bit and wash my own dishes using that water.  For drinking, I normally drink about a 1/3 of a gallon a day (i know it should be more).  And finally I have a baby face so I don’t have to worry about shaving.

I maintained my face and hand washing amounts just for hygiene’s sake.

The experiment using only 2 gallons a day didn’t work out unless I didn’t shower for that day.  When I was tracking how much water my family and I were using, it was unbelievable how fast the number of gallons started to add up.  In my own personal amount of water per day, I use on days where I do dishes and the wash add up to about 70 gallons.

 

3 thoughts on “Mod 4. Money Usage – Tyler Brackbill

  1. Hi Tyler,
    I thought it was pretty interesting how your family gets its daily water from a well. I think this is a great way to get water for a household as it saves a lot of money and is completely harmless to the environment. I would like to do the same if I lived in an area which made it easily available to install a well. Something my family does to save money is we get our water from the mountain ourselves by hand while the rest of our water is providing by a local company. Here is a link to my article if you wanted to check it out.
    http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/10/module-4-kevin-hosterman/

  2. Hey Tyler,

    I liked your post, and found it interesting how your water supply works at home. It was cool to read how well water works because I am not used to this. When reading how your experiment went, mine also failed. This experiment taught me how to conserve water more, and how we as a population waste a lot of water. It also taught me that I can take an individual action to help this issue. Here is my blog if you are interested: http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/10/module-4-water-management/

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