How to reduce your water usage and save money

The average person in the UK gets through about 140 litres of water a day. On a metered supply, that works out to roughly £200-£250 per person per year. If you’re not metered, cutting back saves the planet but not your wallet - there’s no financial incentive because you pay the same either way. Everything below assumes you’re on a meter or thinking of getting one.

Where does it all go?

Showers eat up about a quarter of household water use. Toilets take another 22%. Between them, that’s nearly half your bill right there. Baths, washing machines, and general tap use account for most of the rest. Gardens are variable - barely anything in winter, potentially huge in a dry summer.

The average shower uses 10-15 litres per minute. A power shower can blow through 15-20 litres per minute. Even a water-efficient shower head uses 6-9 litres. So an 8-minute shower with a standard head is somewhere around 80-120 litres. That’s a lot of water.

Showers - the biggest win

Cutting your shower from 8 minutes to 4 saves 40-60 litres each time. For a household of four, all doing that daily, you’re looking at over £100 a year saved. That’s the single biggest thing you can do.

Fitting a water-efficient shower head helps too. They reduce the flow rate without making the shower feel terrible (the good ones, anyway). Saves 20-30 litres per shower. A lot of water companies will send you one for free - check your company’s website under their “save water” section.

A 4-minute shower timer stuck to the wall makes a surprisingly big difference just by making you aware of how long you’ve been standing there. Also free from most water companies.

Toilets - worth fixing

Old single-flush toilets use 9-13 litres every time. Modern dual-flush ones use 4-6 on the full flush and 2-4 on the reduced one. If you’ve got a dual flush, use the small button for liquid waste - that alone saves 3-5 litres per flush, and over hundreds of flushes a month, it adds up.

The one to watch for is a running toilet. If you can hear water trickling into the bowl when nobody’s used the loo recently, the flush valve is probably worn. A running toilet can waste 200 litres a day or more. Fixing it usually costs a few quid for a new washer or valve.

You can also drop a cistern displacement device (sometimes called a “hippo”) into the tank to reduce how much water it holds. Saves a litre or two per flush. Free from most water companies.

Taps and kitchen stuff

A running tap burns through 6 litres a minute. People leave them running whilst brushing teeth, whilst washing up, whilst rinsing veg. Just turning the tap off when you don’t actively need the water makes a difference.

Washing up in a bowl or a plugged sink rather than under a running tap uses far less water. Same goes for rinsing fruit and vegetables - fill a bowl rather than holding them under the tap.

Running your washing machine or dishwasher half-empty is essentially throwing money away. Wait for a full load. The eco modes on modern appliances take longer but use less water and energy, so they’re worth using.

And fix dripping taps. A single dripping tap can waste 5,500 litres over a year. It usually just needs a new washer, which costs pennies and takes ten minutes if you’re handy.

Gardens

This is where water use can get out of hand in summer. A sprinkler can use 1,000 litres an hour - that’s the same as a family of four uses in a day.

A water butt is the obvious move. Collects rainwater from your roof and stores it for the garden. A decent one holds 200+ litres and the water is free. Watering in the evening rather than midday means less evaporates before it reaches the roots. Mulching beds and borders reduces how quickly soil dries out. And honestly, your lawn will survive without watering - it goes brown in dry weather but bounces back when it rains.

A trigger nozzle on your hose stops water flowing when you let go, which prevents waste when you’re moving between plants. And pressure washers, whilst satisfying, use a lot of water - save them for when the drive genuinely needs it rather than making it a weekend habit.

Checking for leaks

Leaks are the silent killer on a metered supply. A pipe leaking underground or in a wall cavity can waste thousands of litres before you see any sign of it.

To check: turn off every tap and water-using appliance in the house, then read your meter. Wait an hour or two without using any water, then read it again. If the number’s changed, you’ve got a leak. Common culprits are toilet cisterns (often completely silent), underground supply pipes, central heating systems, and outdoor taps.

If the leak is on the water company’s side of the stop tap, they fix it. If it’s on your property, it’s your cost - but they may still adjust your bill if the leak was hidden and you’ve since had it repaired.

Free water-saving products

Before you spend anything, check what your water company gives away. Most offer water-efficient shower heads, shower timers, tap aerators (which reduce flow), cistern bags, trigger hose guns, and sometimes even garden watering crystals. They’re properly free - no trials, no subscriptions. Just order them through your company’s website.

What’s it all worth?

For a metered household that makes a genuine effort - shorter showers, efficient shower head, fixed taps, full loads, fixed running toilet, water butt - we reckon you could realistically save £150-£250 a year. That’s roughly one or two months’ worth of water bills. Not life-changing, but not nothing either.