LEED for Homes 101: Water Efficiency
Last Updated: Apr 13, 2025As part of my LEED for Homes From the Editor series, I have introduced LEED for Homes 101 and provided an in-depth guide on the first two out of eight LEED categories, why Location & Transportation and Sustainable Sites matter. The third LEED category, Water Efficiency, is all about making more sustainable choices for indoor and outdoor water usage—which means saving water, a precious resource, and saving money on your water bills.
I should note that in April of this year (2019), the US Green Building Council announced a newer, updated version of LEED, version 4.1—and there are indeed changes. Going forward, I’ll be including the newer updates, but since it was just released, not all information is available—and in that case, I’ll look to LEED v4 as a resource. (If you are actually pursuing LEED, be sure and check with a LEED for Homes Provider.)
Why We Care About Water Efficiency
At home, we rely on freshwater for everything: washing dishes, washing clothes, bathing, brushing teeth, cleaning, cooking, flushing toilets, irrigating outdoor lawns, and plants. (This section does not include drinking water, which is more about health and less about efficiency.)
In the United States, according to a report from the U.S. Geological Survey(USGS), approximately 322 billion gallons of freshwater is withdrawn per day from rivers and reservoirs to support residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, and recreational activities.
Table of Contents
- Measure your water
- Reduce Your Total Water Consumption
- Does This Cost More?
The residential component of total water use is fairly small: less than 10 percent. According to the Water Research Foundation’s 2016 report on Residential End Uses of Water, homes use an average of 88,000 gallons of water per year per household, and this has decreased by 22 percent since 1999 (the last time it was studied), due to more efficient toilets and clothes washers. But that trend needs to continue as our population grows and we consume more of our freshwater resources.
There are clear financial benefits to homeowners: water costs money, so why not try to be more efficient with it and save money every month? And it’s not just the water bill that can be reduced. Heating water for showers, dishes, and laundry take a lot of energy—about 10 to 15 percent of a home’s total energy use. So saving hot water also reduces your energy bill.
How do we save water in our homes without sacrificing comfort and convenience, and without spending too much on upfront costs? Here’s the translation of the Water Efficiency section of LEED v4.1 for Homes.
Measure your water
Take a look at your water bill. Does it make sense to you? Are you able to know how much water you are using in real-time, or do you have to wait a month or more for the water bill to show up? As with many sustainability measures, awareness is the first step, so LEED requires homes to install whole-house water meters. Compared to earlier versions of LEED for Homes, this is a new prerequisite. (Homes that use a well or are not connected to a municipally supplied water system are exempt. For multifamily housing, each unit needs to have its own sub-meter.)
Why is this important? As the Alliance for Water Efficiency explains, “installing meters and billing according to usage is the single most effective water conservation measure a water utility can initiate.” It’s the old adage, “what gets measured gets managed.”
Many building codes require that water meters be installed for new construction, so check with your contractor. Whether required or not, it’s not free. According to the Alliance for Water Efficiency, a residential-size water meter is about $40, and the cost to install one can range between $180 and $800+ per meter.
Reduce Your Total Water Consumption
Another new prerequisite requires that you reduce your indoor and outdoor water consumption by 20% compared to standard practices; anything over 20% can earn you up to 15 points. The two components to get there are indoor water usage (worth up to 11 points), and outdoor water usage (worth up to 4 points).
To start, you have a choice of two paths: a complicated, formulaic-driven path, or an easier-to-understand path where you pick your appropriate fixtures. The formulaic path allows the full 15 points if you reduce your indoor and outdoor water consumption by at least 80 percent compared to “standard practices”. You earn three points for a 20 percent reduction (meeting the prerequisite), and the points increase by one for each 5 percent reduction. Below, we look at ways to reduce both indoor and outdoor water consumption.
Melissa Rappaport Schifman
Melissa became the Twin Cities’ fifth LEED for Homes Accredited Professional (LEED AP) and completed the work necessary to get her own home LEED Gold Certified, the basis for her book, Building a Sustainable Home: Practical Green Design Choices for Your Health, Wealth, and Soul, (Skyhorse Publishing, August, 2018). With her corporate experience in finance, marketing, and business development, and an MBA and Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Chicago, Melissa has been providing sustainability advisory services to businesses, governmental agencies and non-profits, focusing on strategic and operational change that provide bottom-line financial returns. She has led the LEED certification of two million square feet of commercial buildings, written GRI-compliant Corporate Sustainability Reports, is a LEED Pro Reviewer and LEED mentor with the U.S. Green Building Council. She is the founder of Green Intention LLC where she writes about sustainable home living.
