LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099
Posts: 4,099
Posted:
From time to time questions have arisen on this forum regarding average water use. I myself had the same question once several years ago in contemplation of building a home on my property in northern Arizona. That is, how much water do people use per month?
Even though that is a fairly simple question I recall finding a couple of municipal websites, one in Florida and the other in the San Diego area, where each claimed that the average residential customer was using over 35,000 gallons per month. That seemed a bit much and probably resulted from watering the landscape. At the time my wife and I were living in places where the water was paid for an entire complex so we could not make a reliable measurement of our own usage.
Since we bought our current home four years ago we are once again able to see just how much water we use and in our case it works out to about 50 gallons a day per person. I have found other sources that put the number a bit higher at 80-to-100 gallons per day per person.
In our case it is just my wife and myself. We water plants outside very sparingly, maybe ten gallons a week. Our washing machine is one of those high-efficiency front-loaders and it probably uses less than ten gallons per load. Our dishwasher also uses no more than ten gallons per load. We do not have a swimming pool. The toilets are 1970's-era water wasters but we do have a low-flow shower head. We make no special effort to conserve water and our usage is probably fairly typical for people who do not water their lawns or wash their cars.
Hopefully someone can make use of this information.
Even though that is a fairly simple question I recall finding a couple of municipal websites, one in Florida and the other in the San Diego area, where each claimed that the average residential customer was using over 35,000 gallons per month. That seemed a bit much and probably resulted from watering the landscape. At the time my wife and I were living in places where the water was paid for an entire complex so we could not make a reliable measurement of our own usage.
Since we bought our current home four years ago we are once again able to see just how much water we use and in our case it works out to about 50 gallons a day per person. I have found other sources that put the number a bit higher at 80-to-100 gallons per day per person.
In our case it is just my wife and myself. We water plants outside very sparingly, maybe ten gallons a week. Our washing machine is one of those high-efficiency front-loaders and it probably uses less than ten gallons per load. Our dishwasher also uses no more than ten gallons per load. We do not have a swimming pool. The toilets are 1970's-era water wasters but we do have a low-flow shower head. We make no special effort to conserve water and our usage is probably fairly typical for people who do not water their lawns or wash their cars.
Hopefully someone can make use of this information.