Where do we use our water?
In the home, water use increases dramatically with the onset of summer. For example, if you leave the sprinkler on for an hour you will 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.
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How much water do we use? |
Usage/person/day |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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Watering the lawn four hours a week An outdoor tap turned on full will use around 1000 litres/hour. |
204 litres/person/day |