| One thing that is very apparant to me from my visits with clients is how little attention is paid to water consumption in business. Now that all non domestic premises are being billed on metered consumption, surely anything – no matter how little, that affects the bottom line, should be given attention ?I remember the last thing my father always asked last thing at night – ‘is the immersion heater turned off ?’ Now, that was because he was obviously well used to paying the electricity bill and there was no way that for no reason, we would leave the immersion heater on – may as well burn the money ! We used to check the dial on the meter and if it was whizzing around, we’d investigate and invaiably find something had been left on – job done !Now that businesses are paying for water, why is that bill not treated in the same way ?
Businesses seem to have very little knowledge of how much, when, how they are using their water. They may enact a cursory ‘audit’ but how do they know that anything they do has an x, y or z effect afterwards ? One example is a very good client of ours who was actually very active in implementing water saving measures. They had installed toilet dummies, checked pipes and tanks for leaks etc. They agreed to install one of our monitors and when we returned @ 2 weeks later, they were sure our system was faulty ! What was discovered was that at a time when the premises was actually closed, there was nearly the same consumption of water daily as when they were open ! What was found was that on their side of the water meter ( from which they are being charged ) there was a secondary connection ! This was unknown to everyone until they had the ‘actual’ and ‘real’ information and data. This ownership of having your own real information has led to them looking at enjoying nearly a 50% reduction in what would have been their annual water charge ! Now I’m not saying that everyone would see this reduction but the example is that, equipped with proper monitoring and information, they know what course of action is going to show the greatest return or saving. It could just as easily have uncovered that they had continuous flow from a leaking pipe that they were unaware of, or, someone was leaving an appliance on through the night etc etc etc. The other real benefit is that when you know your starting point – you can check effectiveness of any measures taken against this – thereby knowing whether you are doing the right thing, buying the right water saving devices etc. Now surely that’s worth doing – rather than ‘shooting in the dark’ ? |
| It’s not surprising that there would be a higher demand causing these recent water shortages. People will obviously want to take measures for themselves to ensure they don’t suffer the horrendous consequences of burst pipes etc. This is why they will leave their taps running ( as advised, I believe, by some insurance companies ! ) Who can blame them for doing this ? Everyone will protect themselves. It’s also apparrant how a little bit of forethought to works being carried out could have mitigated against these burst mains pipes etc etc. What I see is that most people don’t really have an awareness of the consequences of their consumption patterns, they don’t even know how much and how, when etc they are using it – how could they ? What – go out and read the meter ? Well, this only gives them and index reading. When are they actually using the water ? How does it ‘steer’ them to making the changes in order to conserve water ? It does’nt. People need information and guidance, knowledge. Why don’t they use / or get supplied with the technology that is there that can supply them with this knowledge and even alarms in the case of leaks so that they can actively and properly engage in water conservation ? WaterSpy for example would do this for them. They would be able to gauge how effective their efforts are. They would be able to see just how much of an impact any action taken would have, over the year. This will become ever more necessary if domestic dwellings are metered. Commercial premises are metered presently, but even these, who are paying, are ‘driving blind’. Knowledge is needed. The ‘tools’ to equip consumers with this knowledge will empower them to make effective change. |
27 Feb
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