Finding the chase and cutting to it

My rental properties were all on rated water bills: this is where a guess is made on water usage based on the number of people living in a property. So, this was a little frustrating at the time, but when I bought a house, this was one of the things I really wanted and got each time.

One of my good friends thought this was insane: why would anyone want that?

I live in the UK, but my grandfather had been based in the middle east for some of his working life and he was keen to instill that water wasn’t a right but a priviledge. I am careful about my usage and fixing any leaks or drips as soon as possible. I havested water for outdoor use, showered to keep clean, and made use of short and eco programmes to save power and water.

To be honest, a water meter seemed like a good way of being rewarded for this behaviour. I have never thought about it more than that. A one bed flat in Bath was rated at £240 a year. My five bed house outside of Ipswich with two adults and a baby was water metered at £180 a year. No brainer!

Until just recently, I never gave it a second thought. 60% of the houses in the UK now have a water meter and that includes all the new builds. On average, people with water meters use less than 82% of the water than those in rated buildings, over the total time in a property. As the population in the UK is growing, water demands and meeting them is not going to be a “someone else will solve this” type of problem.

Conceptually, water demand figures are given in litres, while your water bill is in m³. So, let’s have a look at our family’s usage:

Date	Reading (m3)	Read?	Billed Amount (£)
11/11/2022	62.3	Yes
29/01/2023	65.1	No	53.86
10/05/2023	68.7	Yes	73.13
30/07/2023	71.5	No	61.53
10/11/2023	75.3	Yes	82.87
28/01/2024	78.1	No	61.35
09/05/2024	82.1	Yes	89.63
11/08/2024	85.6	No	82.85
21/11/2024	88.3	Yes	66.90

OKKKKK…

I’m trying to work out “our usage”. Now, using the actual reading fro the 11th November 2022 until the 10th November 2023, we used 13.0m³ which is 13,000 litres. The time period is 364 days, so 13,000/364 litres/day or 35.7 litres a day. At the time, there were three of us in the house, so 35.7/3 = 11.9 litres a day per person.

We were not “being careful” at this time. We were having 3 – 6 baths a week, between the three of us, for example, daily showers often on the same days as the baths… But the UK is trying to reduce the usage per person from the average of 146 litres per day per person to 120 litres.

Oh, well, you’re OK then! Especially on a wet little island.

Well, let’s look at basic usage around the house. There’s always room for improvement! I’ve included the value in terms of the charged units (m³) because I think that makes more sense.

Task	What’s using water?	Quantity (l)	Quantity (m3 )
Flushing toilet	Half flush	3	0.003
Flushing toilet	Full flush	6	0.006
Bath (p shaped)	75% full	179	0.179
Washing up	75% full	68	0.068
Using dishwasher	Eco wash	14	0.014
Washing machine	Cotton wash	70	0.07
Washing machine	Eco cotton wash	50	0.05
Washing machine	Quick wash	36	0.036
Shower	5 minute wash	40	0.04
Washing a vehicle	Car – mix of bucket and hose	100	0.1
Washing a vehicle	Motorbike – mix of bucket and hose	20	0.02

Of course this is hiding some usage. How much water do you boil for food? Pasta, potatoes, other vegetables, all use water, as does dried soup. How many cups of tea and glasses of tap water do you have? When you freshen the water in your coffee machine or kettle, do you pour that water straight down the sink?

We don’t use tap water to water our plants externally, so we don’t internally. Left over drinking water and stale water from the coffee machine provide water for all our indoor plants.

There are other options, if we want to reduce our water usage…

Choosing devices with half-loads makes a big difference – I miss our half-load washing machine and dishwasher!