Water Conservation Tips for the Winter Months

During the cold winter months, we spend more time indoors and can end up using just as much water—if not more—than the summer months. Excessive hot water usage is a major concern as it wastes electricity as well as water.

Here are some tips to conserve water in the winter months to make conditions easier on the environment and on your wallet.

Insulate Hot Water Pipes

Do you find yourself running the shower or faucet for minutes before using the water because it does not warm fast enough? This is common in the winter months when cold temperatures make it more difficult for water to travel through pipes while maintaining heat. A way to combat this problem is insulating hot water pipes to minimize heat loss. Next time you run the water, you’ll be enjoying a hot shower much sooner!

Invest in a Tankless Water Heater

Along those same lines, upgrading to a tankless water heater can drastically increase the efficiency of your system. Instead of constantly keeping a supply of hot water in a tank, a tankless system heats water quickly on demand. If your current water heater is in good working condition, it’s better for the environment to keep using it. But if it is time for an upgrade, consider purchasing a tankless water heater.

Drip Your Faucet

Although typically a leaking faucet can waste a lot of water, during the time period when temperatures dip below zero you will want to drip your water. This inexpensive insurance prevents pipes from freezing and bursting in your home, wasting a lot more water than a day of dripping could do.

Find where the water comes into your home and drip a faucet at the other end of the house, pulling water through the majority of your system’s pipes. Catch the dripping water in a bucket and use it to water your houseplants!


These easy tips for winter can conserve water when it’s cold outside! Do you have any tips that we missed? Comment them below – We’d love to hear them!

Why It Is Important To Stay Hydrated in the Winter

Drinking enough water is incredibly important for your health all year round, but often, people do not drink as much during the winter. When it is hot and your body sweats, we naturally tend to hydrate because we thirst. However, here is why staying hydrated in the winter is worth putting in extra effort to sip your water all day.

Prevent Dehydration

Dehydration is easy to experience in artificially heated house all bundled up in warm clothes, but it is not easy to recognize. We might not feel dizzy or develop a headache; instead your body’s skin might start flaking and your lips might crack and bleed. Just because you are not thirsty does not mean you are hydrated.

Healthy Anatomy

Water’s benefits to your body are plentiful. According to waterlogic.com, keeping hydrated will regulate your body temperature, allowing your blood to carry important nutrients and oxygen around your body and remove toxins from your body.

Fight Fatigue & Winter Weight

Midday fatigue is often a characteristic of dehydration. Water replenishes our bodies and keeps us energized. Skip the 2:30 cup of coffee and reach for a water bottle instead. In the same way, drinking water can keep your body working to its full potential and help you lose weight. We need water to properly digest food, so sometimes we mistake thirst for hunger. Next time you are reaching for a snack, drink a glass of water and see if it satisfies you.

Easy Ways to Stay Hydrated

A couple ways you can consume more water is to eat fruit. Many fruits are incredibly hydrating and healthy for you! Another idea is to buy a fancy water bottle. When you are using a water bottle you like, you tend to drink more water throughout the day. Bring it with you to work and especially to the gym. Another tip from health.com is to drink room-temperature water. The regulate your internal temperature better than water at cold or hot extremes.

These concerns should have you convinced that staying hydrated in the winter is very important! Find easy ways to drink water and appreciate the benefits that comes with it this cold weather season.

5 Ways to Conserve Water in the Winter

Water conservation isn’t something we think much about during harsh Minnesota winters.

If you take a look outside, there is no grass or garden maintenance to do and water does a pretty good job of conserving itself by staying frozen, right? Well, sort of.

Take a look inside your home and you’ll find plenty of ways to conserve water, even during these cold winter months!

Here are some water conservation techniques that are particularly helpful in the winter:

Drip Your Faucets

At first, this may seem counterintuitive to conserving water, but by letting your faucets drip while you’re sleeping or out of the house will prevent the pipes from bursting. Consider the wasted water and other dangers during the winter; letting your faucets drip may potentially save a lot of water.

Utilize a Shower Bucket

Dripping your faucets segways nicely into the next point: Find good uses for the water you drip. To conserve the maximum amount of water, place a bucket or bowl under dripping faucets and use the water to flush your toilet or water your plants!

Insulate Your Hot Water Pipes

One of the best ways to warm up on a cold winter day is with a hot shower. You may have noticed that it takes longer for the water to warm up in the winter than in the summer. That’s because your pipes are cold. Insulating your hot water pipes helps the water warm up quicker and wastes less water while you wait for it to heat up. Also, it protects your pipes from bursting.

This is another instance in which a shower bucket would be helpful. Instead of letting all that water go to waste while you wait for the water to heat up, catch it in a bucket and, again, use it for flushing the toilet, watering plants, or any other use you have for extra water.

Locate Your Water Shut-off Valve

Should a pipe burst or some other catastrophic event happen with your pipes, it is VERY important that you know where the water shut-off valve is on your property. When an emergency comes around, the sooner you can shut off the water, the better. You’ll save money on water and damage repairs, additionally, you’ll save hundreds of gallons of water if you can shut that gushing pipe off right away!

Check for Leaks After the First Thaw

During the winter months, day and night temperatures can be drastically different. As your pipes expand and contract with those changes, they are placed under a great deal of stress. This can cause pipes to leak or break, which can cause massive water loss and high utility costs, so be sure to have a plumber check your pipes for damage after the first thaw.


The average person uses almost 70 gallons of water per day, and that’s only indoor water usage. Peak water usage during the summer for a household skyrockets up to 350 gallons per day! Whether we’re talking about water conservation in the summer or in the winter, it should become a part of all of our daily routines.

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Best of the Season: Winter Activities in Minnesota

Winter activities: they’re not for the faint of heart. Let’s be honest for a minute - we live in Minnesota - yes, the initial shock of winter takes some getting used to, but we aren’t going to spend almost half of the year indoors! Check out some of the best outdoor activities Minnesota has to offer this winter:

Served on the Rocks at an Ice Bar

What better way to enjoy a nice cold beer than by sitting on a big hunk of ice? Minnesota features ice bars across the state. The SocialICE in Rochester has icy signature drinks, twelve-foot artistic designed ice bars, an ice sculpture garden, and more. Make sure you take a trip to Rochester February 18th, 19th, and 20th for food, music, and a fabulous ice bar.

Ice Sculptures

Minnesotans pride themselves on their talent on the ice, off the ice, and with the ice. One of the state’s most time-honored traditions involves creative ice sculptures displays across the state. Eden Prairie has a beautiful and dazzling display of Ice Castles, which opened January 23rd and run through the end of February. The Ice Castles display is an excellent place to take a date or to set out on a family excursion.

Challenge Yourself

With extreme temperatures, there are bound to be extreme winter activities and challenges. Take Minnesota’s all-season sport of fishing out onto the ice this year. There are ice fishing contests and competitions across the state. Look for a location near you with the MNDNR. For the adrenaline junkies, the Minnesota Polar Bear Plunge is an excellent way of raising money for Special Olympics Minnesota athletes. There are plenty of locations and dates across the state that you can participate in for an extreme rush and good cause.

The Classics

With so many events to enjoy, make sure not to forget the classic winter activities. Go skiing and snowboarding at Powder Ridge, Lutsen Mountains, or Blackjack and Indianhead Mountain. Engage with the serenity of winter forests by snowshoeing with friends on a nighttime trail. Embrace your inner kid by grabbing a sled or snow tube and racing down a snow-covered hill. Try and see how many lakes you can go ice skating around. Minneapolis alone has two indoor rinks and 47 outdoor rinks to offer.

For more winter activity ideas, visit the DNR Winter Activities Guide. Embrace all that Minnesota has to offer and aim to fill this winter with exciting experiences and heart-warming memories.

The Truth About Winter Dehydration

When people think of dehydration, they think about working out or standing in the blistering heat. If you’re not sweaty, you’re probably not dehydrated, right? Actually, dehydration isn’t just a summer thing. Winter dehydration can often be more dangerous, mainly because not many people know about it or think about it.

It’s pretty simple when you think about it; winter activities also give you a workout and increase your heart rate, but people also tend to drink less water, making the risk of dehydration even higher.  Who wants to carry water when out in the cold? The following are five things you should look out for during the colder months to prevent dehydration:

1. Lowered thirst quench. Cold weather means that your blood vessels constrict, sending blood to the core of your body. This tricks your body into thinking that you are hydrated, when in reality, you may not be.

2. Cold water slows your body’s communication to the kidneys which then tell your body that it does not need to conserve water. This means that your urine production is increased which lowers the water retained in your body.

3. Sweat evaporates faster in cold weather. Because of this, many people don’t think about hydration lost through sweat in the winter.

4. Wearing too much clothing can be a negative. When you wear too much clothing, you are carrying more weight which will make your body work harder, in turn causing you to sweat.

5. The dry air in the winter time can cause dehydration. When you can “see your breath” in the winter you are also losing water vapor. Your skin usually feels over-dry in the winter; this is a telltale sign of dehydration.

Knowing that winter dehydration is a problem is the first step in counteracting its effects. Making sure that you are drinking an adequate amount of water is essential in maintaining a normal water level in your body. If you have other questions about winter dehydration and the benefits of drinking plenty of water, visit our website at mnawwa.org.