Water Usage

The house that we moved into this autumn has a water metre installed. A few weeks back we received the water tax bill for the previous year. It showed that the previous owners had consumed 406 cubic metres of water over a 403 day period of time. So slightly more than 1 cubic metre a day. Not being able to relate to cubic metres as a unit of measure I converted this to litres. I was flabbergasted to see that this converted to 406,000 litres - 1007 litres of water per day! I couldn't believe it. My gosh.

The nice thing about a metre is that it puts a value in your face. It tells you, directly and immediately, how much water you are using and how much it is costing you. In the 64 days since the last reading the metre has registered another 40 cubic metres of water consumption - 625 litres a day. The good news is that this is considerably lower but says little for sake of comparison yet. The last 64 days have not included any lawn watering. We did change a defective flapper on one of the toilets. We also have bought a new dishwasher and a new laundry machine. These things may be making a difference. Regardless I still find 625 litres a day to be very high. This is 156 litres per person per day. And so I am hoping that we will be able to diminish our consumption over the next twelve months. Tonight at dinner we issued ourselves this challenge.

According to watergovernance.ca in 1999 the average Canadian consumed 343 litres a day. In 2001 this was 335 litres. In 2004 it was 329 litres. So, while I feel good that we seem to be below the Canadian average I am still thinking and hoping that there is much room for improvement. To be honest the figure of 406,000 litres a year really disgusts me and completely surprises me. I might have guessed 200 litres a day - based on nothing but gut feeling. I hope that our family will find a way to reduce this number significantly in the next twelve months.

Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!