Why Reduce water consumption?

If you are on a water meter, you will make two savings:

Firstly, the charge for metered water into your property will lower for every litre you save.

Secondly, you will save 90% on every saved litre in sewerage charges.

The sewerage charge is based on freshwater usage, but the sewerage charge is higher than the water charge.

Every property pays a standing charge for water and sewerage services that is not influenced by consumption, so the fixed charge will still be made even if you use no water at all – there is not much you can do to influence that.

Other reasons to reduce water consumption:

The process used to make it safe to drink uses energy and chemicals. If consumption is reduced, less energy and fewer chemicals are used, which is good for the environment and the economy.

We live in a Fenland area with few natural areas of water storage. Surplus water is potentially a risk to property and lives, so infrastructure monitors water levels and pumps surplus water into rivers and out to sea. This reduces flood risk in seasons of high rainfall. However, in dry seasons, there is a risk of drought. Therefore, low demand for water can be sustained for more significant periods.

How to save water

Smart meter: most properties are already on a water meter (about 90%) that has been upgraded to one that remotely sends readings to Anglian Water (AW). This helps identify and fix leaks and reduces the number of vehicles required to carry out manual meter readings – thus reducing their carbon footprint.

When a smart meter is installed, you can log on to the free application and monitor your consumption. It sends hourly readings in batches to AW. You can select whether the hourly data is shared with your app, or their customer care teams.

Knowing what activities use the most water is good information. Many are surprised by which appliances/activities impact most significantly. For example, I thought a half load of washing would use less water and energy than a full load. Invariably the smaller load will use less, but not much!

Running a tap while brushing teeth uses much more than turning it on and off. Most of us realise that a bath generally uses more water than a shower, but how much more can be saved by turning off the shower when ‘lathering up’ rather than trying to avoid the spray?

When it rains, collect rainwater to use when it is dry for watering the garden or washing cars, windows etc. If the water tank is full, you might have other containers that can be filled ‘ready for action’ so the water butt can take more – you might have multiple tanks or link them together. All rainwater is free and does not impact sewerage charges.

In summer, keep drinking water in a fridge rather than running the tap until it runs cold. Only boiling as much water as you need in a kettle will reduce water and save energy.

Please see below links for the free Anglian Water application.

For iOS

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/anglian-water/id1470593911

For Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.anglianwater.myapp&hl=en_GB&gl=US