Water Basics
Water · Skill 06 of 07

Use Less Water During an Outage

During an outage or an advisory, three days of stored water can quietly become five — or vanish by lunchtime on day two. The difference is almost entirely habits, decided in the first hour.

6 minOffline
Companion

Stretching what you have buys days. Most of it is small changes to how you wash, cook and clean.

What You'll Learn
  • Cut household water use without going without drinking water
  • Separate drinking water from washing, cleaning and flushing water
  • Cook and clean up using a fraction of the usual amount
  • Set simple household rules everyone can follow in an outage
What You'll Need
  • Two or three basins or bowls
    Standard
    Washing-up bowls for wash, rinse and hand washing.
    Low cost
    Any bucket from a hardware or discount store.
    Already have
    Saucepans, mixing bowls, the sink itself, or a storage tub.
  • Hand hygiene without running water
    Standard
    Alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.
    Low cost
    A single small bottle covers a household for days.
    Already have
    Soap and a small poured stream from a bottle works well; wet, lather, brief rinse.
  • Disposable or wipe-clean items
    Standard
    Paper plates, foil, and disposable cups for the duration.
    Low cost
    Foil to line pans so they never need washing.
    Already have
    Cling film over plates; the plate stays clean underneath.
Safety

Do not ration drinking water to make a supply last. Ready.gov is explicit: drink the amount you need today and look for more tomorrow. Reused greywater is for flushing and cleaning only — never for drinking, cooking, washing food, brushing teeth, or cleaning wounds. If anyone shows signs of dehydration — confusion, dizziness, very dark urine, not passing urine — get medical help.

Step By Step
  1. 01Decide the water hierarchy in the first hourDrinking and cooking first, then hand hygiene, then dish washing, then flushing, then everything else. Say it out loud to the household so nobody uses a litre of drinking water to rinse a plate at hour three.
  2. 02Physically separate drinking waterKeep drinking water in one place, clearly marked, and everything else in another. Water for flushing and washing should look different — different container, big label — so it can never be mistaken for drinking water.
  3. 03Wash hands with a poured stream, not a running tapWet hands from a poured bottle, turn the water off, lather with soap for twenty seconds, then rinse with another short pour. Where water is short, alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol is the low-water option — though it works less well on visibly dirty hands.
  4. 04Cook to avoid washing upOne pot, foil linings, and food that doesn't need draining. Pasta and rice drink water you can't get back; tinned and ready-to-eat foods need almost none. Keep the water you cook vegetables in — it makes soup.
  5. 05Wash dishes in two basins, not under a tapOne basin of warm soapy water, one of rinse water. Wash least dirty to most dirty. Two basins can clean a family's dishes on a few litres, where a running tap uses that in a minute.
  6. 06Reuse water down the hierarchyDish rinse water becomes flushing water. Cooking water becomes soup or cools and goes to plants. Water only ever moves down the hierarchy — never back toward drinking.
  7. 07Flush deliberatelyA conventional flush uses more water than a person drinks in a day. Flush solids only, and use collected non-drinking water poured briskly straight into the bowl rather than the cistern where possible.
  8. 08Run one practice dayPick an ordinary day and run the whole household on stored water only, with the taps treated as off. You'll learn your real daily use in one day — and it is almost always the washing-up and the flushing that surprise people.
What To Look For
  • How fast your first gallon goes on a practice day — that is your true baseline
  • Anyone in the household still using drinking water for cleaning
  • Containers of non-drinking water without a clear label
Common Mistakes
  • Cutting down on drinking to save water. Never do this — dehydration is a health emergency, and drinking is the one use you don't ration.
  • Filling the bathtub and treating it as drinking water. A tub is not a clean, sealed container.
  • Using drinking water for the first big wash-up, before anyone has thought about it.
  • Reusing water upward — washing water must never come back toward drinking or cooking.
  • Assuming the outage will be short. Habits set on day one are what decide day three.
When To Get Help

If your stored water is going to run out before the supply returns, contact your local emergency management agency or listen to local authorities for distribution points. Do not turn to an untreated source as a first resort when official water is available.

Worth Knowing
  • Cooking with tinned food means you also drink the liquid it's packed in rather than pouring it away.
  • Wet wipes and dry shampoo carry a household through several days of not washing properly.
  • Fill sinks, tubs and spare containers with washing water at the first warning of an outage — that water is for cleaning and flushing, not for drinking.