Top Tips on Saving Money on Your Water Bill

Unlike broadband, gas, electricity and oil, saving money on your water bill is largely down to one thing, namely using less water! This, of course, assumes that the water you are using is metered in the first place.

If your home is not metered then your water bill will be based upon the notional value of your home as indicated in your council’s banding and whether or not your home is draining to drains or a private septic tank. If the latter, you shouldn’t have to pay for the maintenance of mains drainage and your bill should be reduced accordingly.

Deciding whether or not you should have a meter will largely be dependent on the council tax banding your home falls within and whether you live there alone and rarely water the garden or have a bath, or on the other hand, you live there with a large family, refill the swimming pool once a year and wash your fleet of range rovers every weekend prior to turning on the lawn sprinklers! If you use a lot of water, not being metered might still be the best option.

Assuming you are metered (or you just feel a responsibility to reduce waste of natural resources) there are several things you might consider to help reduce your water usage. They include;

• Shower rather than use a bath. This might save 50 litres of fresh water every visit.
• Use aerators on your taps. These reduce the amount of water used when running taps or showers.
• Install modern dual flush toilets which reserve ‘the big flush’ for the bigger jobs – so to speak. This can save hundreds of litres of water a year when compared against older wcs which might flush 13 litres of water with every use.
• Fit aftermarket cistern displacement device to old toilets (in the old days we used to use an old brick in the cistern, but they can dissolve and block up drainage).
• Don’t leave taps running whilst washing up or cleaning your teeth. That can waste litres every day.
• Install some water buts to collect rainwater from downpipes. This will enable you to save water during the summer when the garden needs a drink!
• If you are not on mains drainage, you will need to have your septic tank emptied periodically and this can be costly. Consider installing a water treatment plant instead which will treat sewage and leave just fresh water which can drain into a nearby soakaway, or culvert, if appropriate.