Once your project is finished, your water bills will be the simplest way of checking if your home is achieving the water objectives you set at the start.
However, this can be difficult if your house is located in a rural area without a metered connection to the city water supply. Users located in these areas can request a meter from Watercare at their own expense or can install their own meters to monitor use.
Keeping track of usage will enable you to adjust behaviours if necessary and identify unexpected increases that could indicate something is not working properly. Leaks are not always easy to spot but can have a great impact on your usage – a dripping tap can waste up to 33 litres a day.9
Monitoring and control systems provide a more detailed breakdown of your water use by keeping track of water use from different end uses or areas in the house. They can provide live data and increase your ability to control systems, and simplify integration between them to improve performance. Such systems can also automate tasks such as irrigation so that it can be done at the right time and for the right duration.
If one of your objectives is water independence, monitoring and control systems can determine the amount of water you have stored, helping you make more informed decisions about the way you are using water at home.
9Watercare, Be Waterwise, p. 5.