California has one of the strictest requirements for water conservation plumbing fixtures, but it doesn’t prevent you from taking 10-hour showers (especially if you have a tankless water heater) except by penalizing you on your water bill. In one of the houses that I built, there were a few water “conservation” features that I included. The first feature was an existing well in the backyard. Wells can be difficult to come by because of the water table height in most areas and many cities are not allowing new wells, only grandfathered ones. The well was great in that all we had to pay for was the electricity on the pump to irrigate the landscaping. I never monitored this cost, so I don’t know what the cost differential was. However, there’s still other things to consider with well water. The pump seems to go out every few years which can cost a few hundred dollars for the pump plus the cost to replace it. The water is quite hard and so as it crystallized, it would change the spray patterns on the sprinkler heads and block up drip emitters. Typically, you should expect to do more maintenance on the sprinkler heads and drip emitters if using well water. Particulate in the pump discharge would accumulate and block small drip lines. A filter helped, but it is another thing to maintain. As a gut reaction, I think the well irrigation was cost neutral to city water, but wells can be a benefit during drought times and also a big benefit in natural disaster times when a clean water supply may not be possible to find. Granted you would still have to filter this water to make it potable and have a power source to run the pump.
In two of the houses I built, I decided to put in a greywater system. In these houses, both the master tub and shower and other upstairs tub/showers collect into a single discharge that you could route to the backyard or to the sewer with a diverter valve. If you research greywater systems, you will find out that they can be quite complex and there are a lot of points to consider. The first is that you must use certain hair, body and cleaning products that are safe for your plants. In my experience, I didn’t find this to be a significant hardship and sometimes we did use products we probably weren’t supposed to and didn’t notice any problems to the plants. The second was how do you move the water to your plants. Many people implement graywater systems that use pumps and thus filters that you have to clean and maintain. I decided to make mine completely gravity fed and extremely easy and it worked out great. If you want some tips on this, email me. However, I think that with all of the hassles during construction to solve drain routes and potentially the limited water savings, I’m not sure I would prioritize this under normal conditions, but under a severe drought, I think this would be a huge benefit.
Artificial grass is by far one of the best sources of water savings and I put this in the front yard at one of my houses. Many of the artificial grasses look so real these days that many people commented on how real it looked. It is important to do certain things to make it look more real. Though the upfront cost of installing the artificial turf might be approximately $3/sq ft higher than real grass (with sprinklers), think about the fact that you have green grass all year round and you don’t have to water or mow it, and you can play on it even when it is rainy and muddy outside. The primary downside is that it doesn’t feel real and is probably a bit more abrasive if you are sliding around on it. I have found that the more realistic looking the grass is, the more abrasive it is. So choose wisely.