How much water do you use

mmmmikey

1stTimer said:

Thanks guys for the advice, the issue I have is i don’t know where the meter is installed? Looks like all the houses on my road have the round metal thing at the end of the drive and the meter are in there, mine isn’t.
TW have said it’s possibly located in a neighbours, and bare with me if this sounds like a silly question but are they labelled up if I was to start knocking and asking if I can check inside there?
TW have now agreed to send someone out but within 15 days and can’t tell me the day in advance so I can be at home. It’s ridiculous.

Hi - do you mean there isn't a round metal chamber (top about 15cm in diameter) or do you mean there's a chamber but no meter? If the latter, be aware that they sometimes fill with water and/or can be quite deep and/or sometimes have a chunk of polystyrene over the meter. Do you know where the water comes into the house? If you do, you can guess where the pipe comes through the wall from the outside and the pipes usually (always?) run in straight lines so you might be able to work it out from that.

mmmmikey

Some big water savings to report - feeling quite smug

In round numbers:

Averaged 200 litres per day over the last year.

Saving about 25 litres per day as a result of replacing a faulty and over sized water softener for a portable one. It was softening the water well but using way too much water regenerating due to a faulty circuit board.

Saving about 15 litres per day as a result of installing an under sink water heater and sorting out some crazy plumbing runs - much less running the taps waiting for hot water. This is also saving about 1.5kWh per day in electricity.

Saving about 10 litres per day I can't really account for so probably comes down to just being generally more aware of how much water I use.

But the real big one is saving 100 litres per day by using rainwater for toilet flushing, laundry and watering the garden.

So in round numbers a 75% reduction, it does need to rain to make it sustainable but if I've done the sums right I need to recover about 50% of what falls on the roof and can cope with about 6 weeks of drought.

Time will tell if this works in the long term, but initial results are certainly encouraging. Should represent an annual savings of about £250 at current rates.