UK Water Facts
Before we look at how you can save water, take a look at these facts about UK water consumption and wastage:
- The demand for water in the UK is growing at roughly 1% per year.
- The average person in the UK uses 150 litres of water per day.
- The UK has less water per person available for use than most other European countries.
- 58 bathtubs of water are used per person everyday to make the products we buy and food we eat.
Saving Water In The Bathroom
Fix Leaky Taps
To save water in your kitchen and bathroom, we recommend making sure your kitchen tap doesn’t leak or drip. A trickling tap can use over 450 litres a day, or a huge 175,000 litres of water in a year! This costs the average homeowner a painful £300 extra on their water bill, which can be prevented with a simple fix.
Usually, leaking taps are caused by a degraded tap washer, so please check out our dripping tap guide to find the root of the problem.
Shower Instead of Having Baths
One of the easiest ways you can save water at home is switching some of your baths to showers. At typical bath will use around 100 litres of water, which is almost 3 times as much as a shower.
If you find yourself topping up the water in a bath every so often because it’s going cold, you could purchase a reinforced acrylic or steel bath. Both of these types retain heat for anything up to 30 minutes longer than a conventional bath.
Get an Eco Shower Head
A great way to save water at home is to buy a water-saving shower head. These showers reduce the water coming out of your shower by up to 50%, which will have a huge impact on your water bill! You will save a noticeable amount of money on your utility bill by making this switch, and there are plenty of cost-effective shower heads available to buy.
It's also important to keep your taps and showers in good condition and free from limescale to ensure they're working as efficiently as possible. We have everything you need to know about cleaning a shower head easily at home.
Water Saving Toilets
About a third of all water usage in households comes from the toilet, so this is the perfect place to start saving water. Toilets with a dual flush plate will lead to much greater water savings. These allow you to choose either a full flush or a reduced flush which will cut your water consumption.
Tap Aerators
To reduce water wastage in the bathroom and kitchen, opt for taps with aerators or flow regulators. These clever attachments control the amount of water that flows through the tap without reducing the water pressure. They mix the water with air and reduce the flow rate, ensuring you only use a necessary amount of water.
At The Basin
One of the easiest ways to save water daily is turning the tap off whilst you brush your teeth. Leaving the tap running as you brush can waste up to 10 litres a minute,
Saving Water In The Kitchen
10% of water usage in the home comes from the kitchen, so this is an important part of saving water at home.
Use a Dishwasher Over Washing Up
Did you know that 10 minutes of rinsing dishes wastes 100 litres of water? It's much more eco-friendly to use a washing up bowl to clean your dishes as this only uses 10 litres of water per bowl.
Advice from Bosch argues that a dishwasher only uses 9.5 litres of water per wash, suggesting that this method is a more sustainable way to wash the dishes, with the added bonus that dishwashers have a large capacity to hold a multitude of pots, pans and crockery. It's also good advice to use the eco setting which will use less energy than a standard wash.
Use a Filtered Water Jug
It’s good practice to keep a filtered water jug in your fridge so you can access instant cold drinking water. The act of running a kitchen tap for a while to get cold water can waste 8 litres of water per day, which adds up to over 11,000 litres per year. You can easily prevent this wastage by keeping a water jug in your fridge which will help to decrease your water bills.
Only Boil Necessary Water
Kettles make up a large part of water usage in the kitchen. Get into the habit of only boiling the amount of water you need, as this will save water as well as energy. If you want to boil one or two cups of water, consider filling them up with water first then pour it into the kettle to ensure there’s no wastage.
Use The Correct Sized Pans
When cooking food, using the right size pan is vital to reduce water wastage. Using pans which are too large for the amount of food can lead to litres of water and energy wastage.
Do Cold Clothes Washes
Washing your clothes on a cold 30 degree setting won’t directly save you any water, but it will save energy. Research done by the Cleaning Institute suggests that around 90% of the energy used by washing machines goes towards heating the water. By choosing a cold wash for your clothes, you will be saving extra energy that is not needed.
It’s also important to ensure you have a full load and are not just washing a few individual items, as this will make your energy bills add up even more.
Use Rainwater to Water Plants
If you have plants around the home, it’s good practice to use rainwater to water them. If you don’t have a water butt outside, consider leaving some buckets or watering cans outside during the rain and use the water that they collect for your houseplants.
Utilise Double Bowl Sinks
A double bowl sink can be really effective in the drive to save water. Instead of leaving the water running while you clean dishes, fill one bowl of your kitchen sink with soapy water for washing and one with clear water for rinsing the dishes. This will drastically reduce the amount of water you need to wash up.
With this handy guide, you should be able to save some of the water that usually goes to waste around the home. For more advice on how to cut your bills, check out our guides for how to save money on food and household energy.
