Water Conservation Quick Facts for Business Owners

• Inform, your employees and co-workers about water scarcity issues and impacts of water conserving practices not only saves water, but also saves money (on operation and production costs.)
• Educated employees will be able to identify problems before they become serious and can help think innovatively about ways to conserve or reuse water within the facility.
• Read your water meter daily, weekly or monthly to record your average water consumption. Water meters generally are located near the front of your property.
• It is suggested that the meters are read and recorded at the beginning of shutdown and at the recommencement of operations. Any water use during shutdown can be attributed to leaks and the source should be investigated.
• If your business has multiple buildings or processes, to help you fully understand your water use, install a separate meter at each location.
• Establish a baseline use. Your water and sewer bills can help you understand your historical water use.
• To establish a baseline for your average daily consumption, divide your monthly or bi-monthly bill by the number of days in that billing period. This baseline can only be used for comparison if business volumes do not fluctuate.
• For businesses that have seasonal or growth demands, measuring water use per unit of production is the best way to assess your water efficiency. For example if your business grows, your total water use may increase even if you have implemented water saving initiatives.
• Identify and fix leaks. The easiest way to identify when leaks occur is to understand when your use rises above a base level of use for your operations.
• If you have identified that there may be a leak on your property, you need to take steps to locate and repair the leak.
• To locate leaks, look for any trend of increased usage that cannot be associated with increased business through sub-meters.
• Conduct regular inspections of equipment or areas where leaks could occur, like pipe-work joints, connections and fittings. Indications include dampness, rust marks or swelling boards. Significant leaks can often be detected by listening in the absence of other noise.
• Check equipment. Worn, old or poorly maintained equipment can waste significant amounts of water.
• Install monitoring or sub-meter systems that alert you when excessive flows or reduced pressures breach normal ranges.
• For concealed or subsurface pipe-work, leakage detection companies can employ techniques such as pressure testing, flow monitoring and echo correlation.
• Maximize the efficiency of your cooling tower and consider eliminating "once-through" cooling of equipment with municipal water by recycling the water flow to cooling towers or replacing it with air-cooled equipment. High volumes of water can be lost as water vapor while performing the cooling function.
• Install water efficient equipment such as ultra-low flow toilets, faucet aerators, high efficiency shower-heads, water-conserving ice makers.
• As appliances and equipment wear out, replace them with water-saving models.
• Use washing equipment that has aerated spray nozzles equipped with shut-off valves.
• Fit hoses with high pressure, low volume nozzles with shut-off valves.
• Where possible, mop floors rather than hosing.
• Switch from ‘wet’ carpet cleaning methods, such as steam cleaning, to ‘dry’ or ‘spot cleaning’ (powder methods).
• Sweep parking areas rather than hosing, unless it’s required for health regulations.
• Reconsider the need to wash building exteriors or other outside structures.
• Reduce frequency of cleaning external equipment and floors where possible.
• Change window cleaning schedule from ‘regular’ to ‘as required’ and use squeegees to clean the windows.

Via: Georgia Environmental Protection Agency www.ConserveWaterGeorgia.net