Who doesn’t love taking a dip!? Maybe you like to take a refreshing swim in the backyard or or perhaps a nice relaxing bath before bed. Ever wonder which uses more water a year? This is my totally unscientific battle of Bath VS Pool! In this battle we’ll figure out on average which of these uses the most amount of water a year here in the desert.

After poking around the internet very unscientifically I found that most sites say the average size bath is 40 – 60 gallons (1/2 filled) and that the average sized residential swimming pool holds around 20,000 gallons.

Lets assume the pool is already filled and not count the 20,000 gallons it took to fill it the first time. Being that it’s so hot and dry here a pool loses almost it’s entire volume of water a year to evaporation. Not looking good for Pool because that’s 20,000 gallons of water a year so far.

The battle isn’t over yet though because bath likes to slow down and unwind every night which means bath is using 50 gallons of water a night times 365 days a year equals a whopping 18250 gallons! Uh oh, all of a sudden it’s a tight contest.

I don’t know, do we have a winer here? Bath wins by a slight 1,750 gallons, but since this isn’t very precise.

Winner: Bath

Considering we should all bathe and having a pool is a luxury it was a unfair contest to start. I was curious how many gallons of water each might take a year, so I found out and thought I’d share. I’d probably say not having a pool would be best and instead head down to the local community or public pool. If you do have one installing a pool cover significantly reduces the amount of water that evaporates especially in the summer. You also don’t need to use as many chemicals if all your water isn’t evaporating.

As far as baths you can take fewer of them or substitute in a shower with a low flow shower head.

Here’s some water saving tips from the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

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