How much water do you use?

Water use in our homes increases in summer. For example, if you leave the sprinkler on for an hour, you’ll use 1000 litres of water.

A 2007 study by BRANZ, a research and information company providing services for the building industry, monitored the water use from 12 homes on the Kāpiti Coast. The following figures are averages from this study.

How much water do we use?	Usage/person/day
Turning on taps in the house. The households used their taps around 12 times a day, for 27 seconds a time. On average the taps provided 3.9 litres every minute.	7.5 litres/person/day
Having a shower? People in the survey showered 0.7 times a day for 6.9 minutes at a time. The average flow rate was 11.25 litres/minute.	54.3 litres/person/day
Flushing the toilet On average people used the toilets 5.1 times a day. Each flush used 6.2 litres of water on average.	31.2 litres/person/day
Washing the clothes? Households on average washed clothes 0.8 times a day. Each load used on average 125.5 litres.	41 litres/person/day
Watering the lawn four hours a week An outdoor tap turned on full will use around 1000 litres/hour.	204 litres/person/day

Watch our video on saving water in and around the home.

If you think you may have a leak, check out Leaks on private property.