Water Use

This is the first house we've lived in with a water meter. Unfortunately the external meter housing hasn't got a lid so we've not been able to read the meter since we moved in as it's always full of water (irony knows no bounds here!). This obviously doesn't stop Bristol Water as they issued us our first bill today.

Since 21st December we've used a seemingly vast 31 cubic metres of mains water. We try to be very careful with the amount of water we use doing all the things we're supposed to do like; not running water when brushing teeth, taking showers not baths, only using the dishwasher/washing machine when full (plus they're A rated with the lowest water consumption we could find) etc. So even without knowing how much water we've used in the last months I'd hoped we were below average. Our pleasantly low bill implies this is the case but I've done some research to check.

31 cubic metres over six months equates to 170 litres per day for the two of us, so 85 litres per person per day. Ofwat (see link below) state an average consumption of 148 l/p/d in the UK for 2005/6 with an average consumption in our region of 154 l/p/d. 55% of average consumption isn't bad eh!?

I guess the wet summer has helped as we've not been doing much watering of the garden, but even so it's great to see we're well below average. Okay, so I'm out a work 5 days a week using water elsewhere (presumably the Ofwat figures for households are regardless of whether the occupants are at work/school etc during the day) but even so I think we're doing well. It'll be interesting to see how our consumption changes with the planned extension and rainwater harvesting.

http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/aptrix/ofwat/publish.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/leakage_05-06.pdf/$FILE/leakage_05-06.pdf