This paper presents the results of water conservation in low income houses in which four bioclimatic cooling strategies were used: insulation on roofs and cooling equipment, shading devices on windows, thermal mass walls and nocturnal convective cooling. The houses are located in chihuahua, Mexico, where electrical evaporative cooling devices are widely used to lower hot summer temperatures. These devices operate demanding high amounts of energy and water for at least five months of every year. since contemporary local architecture is usually designed without taking into account passive or low energy cooling mechanisms, water consumption for cooling purposes heavily taxes the limited city reserves and the daily share of water allocated to each home. The efficiency in water consumption for each of the strategies applied was calculated by relating the volume of water used by the devices and the reduction of temperatures that was reached on an hourly basis. in order to do this, a measurement parameter is proposed, called “Working evaporation” and measured in liters/degrees in celsius. The results showed water savings from 7 to 47%, depending on the strategy. This confirms the need to evaluate the efficiency of cooling systems in buildings using water consumption as a parameter, and to generate regulations related to the consumption of water in the use of evaporative cooling equipment.