Water Tank Buying Guide
How To Calculate Water Usage In Your Home
Jan
According to YourHome, Australians are the greatest per capita consumers of water. Each person uses an average of 100,000 litres of water per year, which works out to 274 litres per day. If you take this information and apply it to an average Australian family household of two adults and two children, that works out to more than 30,000 litres each month.
If you are interested in calculating your own domestic water usage, Tank Shop provides a helpful online water usage calculator that you can use. While you can also look over your water utilities bills to find out how much water your household consumes, calculating how much water is used by appliances and comes out your taps will help you become more water wise.
Indoor Water Usage
Main areas water is consumed inside your home is in the shower/bath, dishwashing, laundry and toilet flushing. Our online calculator uses the following water usage estimates:
- Shower: 10L per minute (1 person = 80 litres per shower)
- Bath: 150L per tub fill
- Dishwasher: 30L per load
- Front Load Washing Machine: 80L per load
- Top Load Washing Machine: 100L per load
- Brushing Teeth (tap running): 5L per minute (1 person = 10 litres)
- Drinking/Cleaning/Cooking: 10L per day per person
- Hand Basin: 5L per use (approximately 1 minute)
- Toilet Flush (single): 6L per flush
- Toilet Flush (half): 3L per flush
Outside Water Usage
Water is used outside to keep gardens flourishing, topping up swimming pools, watering hard surfaces and car washing. Outdoor water use differs home to home based, however you can calculate your outdoor water usage with the following estimates.
- Garden watering (hose): 15L per minute
- Drip System: 6L/hour
- Car Wash: 200L per wash
- Hosing Hard Surfaces: 15L per minute
- Swimming Pool Water Loss: Surface Area * .125 * 100 (assumes 12.5cm water loss per day)
I hope this article has assisted you to better understand where water in your home is used and how much. With such knowledge you will be able to decide where you could be more water efficient, as well as knowing which rainwater tank size best suits your needs if installing one.
This was excellent info, thankyou. The Water Corp says usage at this property: [single person 10min shower per day, relic 10 min permutation [six stations] 3 times a week] usage 655l/day. This sound like B.S.!!
I totally agree got my bill saying I’m using 671 per day I work away two weeks out
Of every month and live alone
What about air conditioner usage?
Our aircon drips a stack of water
Hi Joanna, air conditioners do produce condensate water as they remove humidity from the air. While this water output can seem substantial, especially on humid days, it’s actually not counted in household water consumption since it’s just condensed moisture from the air rather than water drawn from your main supply or tank water.
The amount of water your AC produces varies based on humidity levels and how much you run the unit. If you’re interested in being water-wise, you could actually collect this condensate water for use in your garden – it’s perfectly suitable for watering plants!
Hope this helps explain the AC water situation.
we have only two people in our property and my bill says we are currently using 1400l a day. I’m at a loss what to do at this stage though. Our bill goes through council and they don’t seem to want to check anything because last 1/4 was similar. Oh yes and we have a large rainwater tank too…
Hi Paula, that’s definitely an unusually high water usage for just two people. The average household usually uses around 200-300L per person per day, so 1400L daily suggests there might be a significant leak somewhere in your plumbing system.
Here are some steps you can take:
1. Do a leak test: Turn off all water taps and don’t use any water for a couple of hours. Check your water meter at the start and end – if it’s moved, you likely have a leak.
2. Check for obvious signs like:
* Running toilets
* Dripping taps
* Wet patches in the yard
* Unusual sounds in pipes
3. If you can’t find anything obvious, I’d strongly recommend:
* Getting a licensed plumber to do a professional leak detection
* Writing a formal request to your council for a meter accuracy check
* Keeping a daily log of your meter readings as evidence
Even with a rainwater tank supplementing your supply, this usage seems excessive and likely indicates an infrastructure issue that needs addressing.
Hope this helps point you in the right direction