Tips To Reduce Your Water Bill

Irish Water are now sending application packs all domestic households connected to public water supplies. Home owners now face the reality of paying the controversial water charges in 2015. Most grown adults use around 50,000 litres of water each year and therefore, the chance of falling below 30,000 allowance litres per adult and 38,000 litres per child is minimal. For example, an 80 litre bath each day totals an adult's entire water allowance for the year.

Save with a Rainwater Harvesting System

Every one of us flush an average of 150 litres of potentially reusable water into our sewers everyday. The same water we use in our kitchens is what we use to flush waste down our toilet cisterns. Approximately 1/3 of our water is used to flush toilets in the average accommodated household. Building regulations for new homes are now moving towards the use of rainwater harvesting systems to cut energy and water costs. Using this system, rainwater can be collected and passed through a filter. This water is then pumped and fed into our toilets, sinks, baths, showers and other sources of readily available, reusable water. 

Rainwater harvesting systems are most commonly fitted in new builds, however they can also be retrofitted and installed in existing dwellings.

Toilet Tips To Reduce Your Water Bills 

Toilets installations completed after the year 2001 typically run on a 6 litre cistern. Making the conversion to a dual flush system, allowing the choice between a full flush and a 3 or 4 litre flush, is a much more efficient method of using bathroom facilities.

However, toilets installed before this period are typically up to 14 litre toilet cisterns. This means that excess volumns of water are flushed each time. In this case, it is worthwhile to consider purchasing a cistern displacement device. This is a sealed plastic pouch which holds 2 to 3 litres of water and rests inside the cistern, to reduce the volume of water that can be held and flushed. DIY systems can also me put in place to reduce wastage of reusable water. 

Sink Water Savers

We all took our water supply for granted over the years, and have developed difficult habits as a result; such as leaving the plug out and the tap on when washing our hands or brushing our teeth. Think of how you use your kitchen sink. Do you leave the tap running when you wash vegetables or wash the dishes? Many of us don't even realise that we are wasting great volumns of water. However, by making the simplest of changes, we can positively impact the cost of our water bills. 

Top Tips

• Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth.
• Put the plug in the sink and make use of skinfuls of water.
• Fill the kettle only to the volume required.
• Fill washing machines and dishwaters before use.
• Purchase water saving shower heads and take shorter showers.
• Wash your car the traditional way - rather than using a hose!
• Install a rainwater harvesting system.
• Install a dual flush toilet system.
• Look out for water leaks!

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