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What is a reasonable amount of water use for a metered business
To make your own assessment of reasonable water use for your business you need to know how much you are currently using. The amount of water you have used in a given time period is indicated on your bill in cubic metres. (1 cubic metre of water is 1000 litres or the equivalent of 220 imperial gallons.)
If you are unable to find this easily or the information has been lost, please contact us.
Questions to ask about your water consumption are:
- Can I account for where the water is going in the premises?
- Does the figure look reasonable for the size of premises?
- Does it fluctuate year to year or is it steadily increasing?
- If use is increasing or decreasing can this be related to production or staff numbers or any other change?
- Is water being used when the premises are shut down at night or when shut for holidays?
- Am I on the most suitable measured tariff for the size and type of usage?
If your consumption is increasing yet your use is steady, there may be a leak that is going unnoticed. Please see Checking for an underground leak.
The information below relates to specific property types.
· Offices
Can you relate the use to staff numbers or floor area to provide a basis of benchmarking against other businesses? You may be a member of a trade federation where you can compare use.
This document is a simple guide to checking whether the water consumption of an office is high or low compared to the average. It also provides some guidance about how to improve water consumption to reduce water and sewerage bills, and provides signposts to more detailed advice: CIRIA Guidance Report for Offices (pdf 1,554kb)
Education establishments can produce a benchmark figure by dividing the annual consumption by the number of pupils. This will provide a nationally accepted benchmark that can be applied.
For local authority schools the website “Water in the School” has been developed by a number of water companies to help and encourage schools to monitor their usage and decide on a plan of action to make changes and monitor the results.
· Factories
If you can separate the amount of water used in your factory or commercial premises into production and domestic use it makes analysis easier. The domestic component will be water used in toilets, showers and the kitchens. Do you have internal meters so you can see how much water is used in each area? We can assist you in this area by providing a quote to supply and fit additional meters if you require them.
Depending on what you use water for it may be possible for you to recycle water within your processes. This may save money on both your water supply and wastewater charges.
· Hotels
http://www.benchmarkhotel.com/ is specifically designed to assist you in benchmarking your hotel, but it requires a subscription.
If you do not wish to pay the subscription fee we may be able to give you an opinion on whether we feel your use is high or not by comparing your use to other comparative businesses.
This document is a simple guide to checking whether the water consumption of a hotel is high or low compared to the average. It also provides some guidance about how to reduce water and sewerage bills, and provides signposts to more detailed advice: CIRIA Guidance Report for Hotels (pdf 937kb)
· Farms
Farms usually have long lengths of small diameter pipework feeding troughs or remote buildings. Often leaks can develop and go unnoticed. Measuring flow at night when use should be minimal can provide an indication of leaks.
With changing farming methods you may have redundant trough supplies on your farm. Contact us if you would like to cancel the bill on a supply you no longer require and we will disconnect it. This will save you the cost of a standing charge and remove the risk of leakage and contamination.
