I’ve finally got round to really digging into our water usage at home and when I look at the amount they say I’m using it really just is not stacking up at all!
We’re a family of 5, so I’m looking to see if anyone else on here has a similar amount of people in their houses and roughly what your cost is, obviously if your on a meter.
I know things will vary in certain areas, but want to see if I’m potentially looking at a leak here, or someone is leaving a tap running when I’m out of the house.
To give an idea, it is saying I’m using 700 litres a day. Apparently an average 5 person house would be using about 250. Even our local area the average is about 260 so my number seems really off here.
Is it possible to take a meter reading, make sure all taps etc are turned off, go to bed or out for the day/weekend. Then take a comparison reading which will be same if there is no leak or greater if there is a leak.
First of all, are you a metered or non metered contact? If on a metered it’s really easy to check and work out usage.
If non metered it could be easily miscalculated as it happened I was charged as a 3 bed flat rather than a studio
Average design water usage for a family of 5 is 350 litres per day
If you want to try to cut it back cut your shower times and make sure your children know how a daul flush toilet works
And put the plug in the sink and not just run the sink tap
Three careful adults here and our daily water consumption for December averaged out at 255L per day, with peeks of 500L and troughs of 100L. Data sourced from Anglian Water customers portal where I can see current and historic data for daily, monthly or annual usage. Fairly sure Thames Water will have a similar customers portal for you to check usage too. Compare daily usage Monday -Friday vs Saturday-Sunday and term time vs school holiday.
Shower time, running taps, washing machines, dish washers and garden hose pipes are the top water users. Thames Water have this calculator
Or Anglian Water’s calculator which requires less data entry
To get past the Error page click on the ‘Advice’ tab and choose ‘Save Water’ and ’ Water usage calculator’
Thanks all, funnily enough after this post I did some more internal research on our shower.
Not very scientific but basically uses about 1ltr of water every 5 seconds so 12 ltr a minute. Usual bath is about 100 ltr. So lets go with 8 miuntes for ease in the shower would come to about a bath.
Noticed one of the kids hoped in the shower, timed her 18 minutes in there!!!
Think I’ve found my “leak”. Words had with everyone now.
Not expecting it to go to 350ltrs etc but the equivalent of 7 baths a day at the moment seemed excessive…
Figures are based on average
If your in a new build it will be less, new builds have to compiy to current building regulations, which means flow restrictions on taps showers , etc
My house is 150 years old and doesn’t have flow restrictions (in theory)
I have added a modern shower system and there is only two of us and no children
Sorry to resurect this but check with your water company as they sometimes offer gadgets to help with these.
We got (a couple of summers back) a heap of goodies (for free). They included different heads for the taps and hose that claimed to save water. But they also had two sand times. One was for 2mins to brush teeth but the other was a 4min one, designed to be stuck in the shower.
I’m a fan of a 4min shower, I think my wife read it as a 40min shower…
I was debating the timer for the shower as this is probably going to be the single biggest water saver. The rest, to be honest they are reasonably good at.
Being a young family of 5 I’m not expecting to be on the lower end of usage, but 700 litres a day just seems excessive.
According to my water bill, the average use for a household of 5 is 720litres per day.
That said, we are a family of four (two kids aged 7 & 10) - SES say the average use is 590 litres per day for a 4 person household but we average 350 litres. I’m probably the worst culprit for long showers so the rest of them are probably keeping the average down for me.
