Tick the water uses that apply to your household, adjust the volumes and frequencies, and get an estimate of your daily and yearly water usage compared with the national average.
Water uses
| Water use | Litres/use | Frequency | Litres/day | Litres/year |
|---|
This is an estimate based on typical reference volumes per water use. Real consumption depends on the flow rate of your shower head and taps, the efficiency of your appliances, and your actual habits. Check your water meter for a precise figure.
Average water usage in the UK and how this calculator works
UK households use around 140 to 150 litres per person per day according to Water UK and Ofwat-regulated water companies, a figure the industry calls per capita consumption or PCC, and it has become a policy focus because several regions, particularly in the south and east of England, face recurring water stress and periodic hosepipe bans during dry summers. Water bills in England and Wales are set by regional monopoly suppliers under Ofwat regulation and are usually charged either on a fixed rateable value or, increasingly, through a water meter that charges by the cubic metre actually used. This tool multiplies a reference volume in litres for each water use by the frequency you enter, scales the per-person uses by the number of people in your household, and adds everything up to a daily and yearly total, so it works with any household size once you adjust the defaults.
Typical reference volumes by water use
| Water use | Typical volume | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Shower | 60 to 80 L | A standard shower head uses roughly 9 to 12 L/min against 6 to 8 L/min for a water-efficient head, over a 5 to 8 minute shower |
| Bath | 150 to 200 L | Roughly two to three times the volume of an average shower |
| Toilet flush | 6 to 9 L | Modern dual-flush cisterns use as little as 3 to 6 L on the reduced setting |
| Washing machine | 50 to 90 L | Per cycle, varies with machine age and programme selected |
| Dishwasher | 10 to 15 L | Per cycle, generally more water-efficient than washing by hand |
| Washing dishes by hand | 10 to 20 L | Mostly driven by whether the tap is left running rather than filled in a bowl |
| Garden watering | Varies by area | A hosepipe can use over 500 L an hour, well above the drip-fed volumes used here |
| Teeth brushing / other tap use | 5 to 10 L/day | Chiefly a function of whether the tap runs continuously |
What this calculator cannot do
The reference volumes above are typical figures, not a measurement of your specific shower head, tap, or appliance, and actual flow rates vary a great deal between an old fitting and a modern water-efficient one, often by a factor of two. The garden watering estimate in particular is a rough figure because a hosepipe, a sprinkler, and a watering can deliver very different volumes over the same amount of time, and rainfall in a given year changes how much supplementary watering a garden actually needs. This tool does not replace an actual water meter reading, which remains the only accurate record of what a household uses, and it does not account for leaks, which the Consumer Council for Water estimates can waste well over 100 litres a day undetected. For how your water use fits into your wider environmental impact, see the Carbon Footprint Estimator, and for the electricity used to heat that water, see the Home Energy Consumption Calculator.
A worked example
A household of two people taking one 65 L shower per day each and flushing the toilet five times a day each uses 130 L a day on showers alone (65 x 1 x 2) plus 75 L a day on flushing (7.5 x 5 x 2), for 205 L a day from those two uses. Add a washing machine cycle every other day at 70 L (roughly 35 L a day averaged over the week) and a dishwasher run once a day at 12 L, and the daily total reaches about 252 L a day, or 126 L per person per day, which sits slightly below the 140 to 150 L UK average once garden watering and baths are left out, and would rise well above it in a garden-watering summer month.