We save water: You can too.

Your problems? Solved. email nick leth at gmail dot com. No worries. Now.

Our latest water consumption bill is sitting in front of me. It clearly shows how much less water we use this year, compared to last year:

• This period last year -- 400 kL
• This period this year -- 64 kL

No, it's not that we live in a drought zone. For comparison, the water bill provides these averages:

• Our suburb, without bore -- 295 kL
• Our suburb, with bore -- 170 kL

For several years our water bills included little notes. Notes such as, "You are real water hogs. You use far more water than any of your neighbours." Notes that are intended to shame us into saving water.

So, we saved water.

How did we do it?

First, we called a plumber to fix several dripping taps. And to stop the regular dripping overflow from our hot water system.

Two of the taps still drip. The plumber also added water hammer to our plumbing problems. The hot water system doesn't drip, it flows.

We're not interested in spending another $200 for bad plumbing. So we put up with dripping taps. And occasionally empty the hot water overflow into the pool or garden.

That did not save us any water.

Next, we replaced our old dual flush toilets with the latest models. The old toilets were leaking, continuing to flow after the cistern was full. The new toilets don't leak. They also use less water -- per flush.

Our new toilets use less water per flush.

Unfortunately, the new "full flush" is not enough to actually flush the toilet.

Have you ever come back to a toilet to find something nasty and brown and smelly floating... disintegrating... in the bowl? This used to be a problem in public toilets. Thanks to our new low flush toilets, we now have the same problem at home.

Now, as a matter of habit, I flush twice.

So no, our new dual flush / low flush toilets do not reduce our water use. If anything, they have increased the amount of water that we use.

Our children have left home. You would expect that that would reduce our water use... It probably would, if they did not come here to do their weekly washing.

Still... less people in the house must reduce our water usage by some amount. I can recommend living alone as one way to reduce household water consumption.

Which, as an aside, is the key to the real problem behind our water "shortage": too many people. But business and government want to pack in more people, so get used to pressure to cut your water consumption.

Anyway... How did we manage to so drastically reduce our water consumption? It's easy! Is it something that you can do? Yes!

We installed a garden bore.

Now our vegetable garden is a bed of green productivity. (After being a death-bed of dried and dying weeds, for many years.) Our lawn is green, rather than brown. Even our native plant garden is thriving!

Of course, we're drawing water from underground instead of via pipes from the dam. Our power bill is increased.

But look at all the (scheme) water that we have saved! Our first water usage bill -- post bore installation -- even had a congratulatory note. "Well done. You are using far less water than any of your neighbours." We are so proud :-)

So that is how we have done our bit to reduce our scheme water consumption. You too can reduce water usage -- with no positive effect on overall environmental destruction.

You -- and the 1.7 million other Perth residents -- can install a bore and reduce your scheme water consumption.

Of course while there are still 1.7 million of us -- and growing -- the environment is stuffed.

But no-one cares about that. Not enough to actually say, Enough is enough.

So follow our example. "Save" water. Suck the environment dry. And brag about our efforts to be... sustainable.

Independent thinking & independent analysis of your problems. Agamedes Consulting: Support for your thought. email nick leth at gmail dot com