Yard Tips
You can save a lot of water outdoors. In fact, most people use 70 to 90 percent of their drinking water outside! Use these tips to save water in your yard.

Car Wash Tips
Use a commercial car wash. Washing your car at home can use two to three times more water than a commercial car wash. When you wash your car at home, water flows into the street. This water isn't captured and recycled.

Commercial car washes recycle water on-site or send it to a water treatment facility, where it is cleaned and returned to Lake Mead. Because the water is returned to the lake, we can draw it out of the lake and use it again. Get coupons to a Water Smart Car Wash on the Southern Nevada Water Authority's Web site.

If you wash a car at home, make sure you have a nozzle on your hose to avoid wasting water.

Pool Tips
A 675 square-foot swimming pool uses less water than 675 square-feet of grass. Still, nearly 20,000 gallons of water evaporates from a 20 foot by 30 foot swimming pool during the summer months. Reduce water evaporation by following these tips:

• Surround your pool with decking rather than grass
• Use a pool cover and cut your evaporation in half
• Cover the pool on windy days as wind increases evaporation

Garden Hose Tips
A garden hose can use more than 10 gallons of water per minute. To minimize water waste, try putting a spray nozzle with a shut-off handle on your hose so water doesn't flow continuously.

Convert to xeriscape
Xeriscape, pronounced zeer'-ih-scape, is a water-smart landscape that includes colorful flowers, plants and trees. Xeriscape is a type of desert landscaping that is lush, yet it saves water.

Property owners who convert from grass to xeriscape save about 62 gallons of water per square foot per year. Someone who converts a 1,000 square feet grass lawn to xeriscape will save about 62,000 gallons of water each year. The Water Authority offers a rebate to help people convert to xeriscape. Find out more about the Water Smart Landscape rebate.

Irrigation Tips
Our parched desert ground is very hard, making it tough for water to soak in very deep. Use the cycle and soak method of irrigation for grass. Water grass in three short cycles of four minutes each, spaced about one hour apart. Your lawn will actually absorb more water than if you let the sprinklers run for 12 minutes straight. See the Irrigation Tips page for more information.