Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jul 25, 2014 8:38 am Curious to know what water usage was during a billing cycle that people have experienc3d whilst building? *edit thought some specifics might be handy - Shortly after my slab was poured, the builder had my water pipes (that were supposed to be connected to the house) just bent over and taped. These constantly dripped against the slab for almost the entire build. I complianed incessantly, took photos, documented responses etc. Basically being told not to worry its not enough water to cause issues. After I did my own calcs I worked oout that they dumped approx a tonne of water on one corner of my house over a 3 month period. Just now I got my rates notice for the quarter (which lines up with approximately the same period my calcs were for) and it shows 11 kilolters used. thats 11,000lt! Now I appreciate some of these may be used for the building of the house, but im trying to understand approximately how much water would have been used for building. Things i can assume it would have been used for is making up the mortaer for briks, the mortar for tiling and the vatious clean ups. But i cant work out how 11,000 liters of water could be used for just those jobs. So would be good to know if people have an idea on how much water was used during the construction of tehir home. usefull data fo rme is size of house, time to complete building, kilolitre usage over a billing cycle, and whether anyone had issues with builders wasting water. If wastage was an issue, did th ebuilders foot the bill for it? Cheers. Creator of superduperonium, expert at expert things, nobel laureate, can hold my breath for 10 minutes. Re: water usage during building 2Jul 25, 2014 9:41 am We're doing a KDR so the first meter reading after demolition was about a week after site start but before the slab was poured. We had a meter reading last week and we're four to six weeks from completion and handover (currently at the end of week 28 since site start in January) for a 26 sq home. Total usage so far has been 28 kL. Plus another 7 kL usage for the bill prior which covered a couple of weeks before we moved out and demolition. The killer is the water and sewer service charges (which have just gone up again). The first bill during the build was $188 which included a whole $8.93 of actual water volume for the 4 kL used for the slab, frame, roof and first couple of weeks of bricklaying. ETA: we haven't noticed any wastage per se. Once or twice the front tap has been left dripping a little and we've just turned it off when we've noticed it. The daily usage on the last (biggest) bill is 255 L per day which is about a bathtub's size. ~ Anne I used to be indecisive but now I'm not quite sure. Eeek - We're embarking on a knockdown rebuild! Click here for our build thread Our blog: kdrhome.wordpress.com Re: water usage during building 3Jul 25, 2014 9:44 am I don't actually remember any of the numbers, but the usage part of our last bill was negligible (in money terms - I don't really have a grasp of how big a kL is so I never remember those readings). Way way less than where we're living. Re: water usage during building 4Jul 25, 2014 10:05 am yeah its way less, Im just trying to get a feeling for how much water was drained under my slab as compared to used for washing tools and making mortar etc. Creator of superduperonium, expert at expert things, nobel laureate, can hold my breath for 10 minutes. Re: water usage during building 5Jul 25, 2014 10:44 am Most of the water whilst I'm building my home has gone on establishing some of lawn, so as to reduce erosion issues on our rather sloping block (see pictures on my blog). The meter is now reading 44 since it was hooked up back in January. When the slab was done, I was there all day, and they used water to rinse off their tools regulary, but as it was a trigger nozzle on the hose, the water only ran whilst they were using it. The chippies and roofer used minor amounts as well. I always turned off the water at the meter when I wasn't there, and advised all my trades to turn it on if they wanted water, but to turn it off when they left at the end of the day. Some days when I got there I had to turn on at the meter as they hadn't bothered. The idea was that should the 'kiddies' come in to play, they could turn on the tap at the house and leave it on, but as there's no water getting there, they couldn't flood the block. Owner Building at Jimboomba Woods in Logan City Qld. Blog : http://bandlnewhomebuild.blogspot.com H1 thread : viewtopic.php?f=38&t=68283 . Re: water usage during building 6Jul 25, 2014 10:55 am our slab went down on the 14 April my last water bill was for 25 march to 23 may (59 days) the water usage was 38 KL Re: water usage during building 7Jul 25, 2014 11:01 am wow all of these seem significantly mor ethan mine - the sheer volume of water usage doesnt make sense so far still... Creator of superduperonium, expert at expert things, nobel laureate, can hold my breath for 10 minutes. Re: water usage during building 8Jul 25, 2014 11:04 am A total 11Kl used between end of Feb to end of May. Haven't received my invoice for June yet. Have noticed a lot of water puddle/residual when i get home from work, thinking the builders next door or across the roads might be using my water, it always looks like it just being finished using and there's a big puddle of water running down the slope! The same with my other neighbours taps! Can someone advise how you shut the water off during the days? Second Build, this time with Carlisle 2016, can't wait! Beckham: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=67280 Canterbury: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=81175 Re: water usage during building 9Jul 25, 2014 11:09 am Ponzu wow all of these seem significantly more than mine - the sheer volume of water usage doesn't make sense so far still... When you are hand watering for hours on about a 1/3 of an acre to get grass to grow, you certainly will use up a fair bit of water, but considering mine is for 6 months usage, I don't feel too bad. PEARZ Can someone advise how you shut the water off during the days? Just turn it off at the meter down the front of your block. Most can't be bothered to go down there to turn it on in the first place, and if the neighbourhood kids get on to your block and turn on all your taps, they often aren't smart enough to go down the front in full public view to turn it on at the meter. Owner Building at Jimboomba Woods in Logan City Qld. Blog : http://bandlnewhomebuild.blogspot.com H1 thread : viewtopic.php?f=38&t=68283 . Re: water usage during building 10Jul 25, 2014 11:14 am For what it's worth, my company ran tests several years ago to find out how much water was lost annually from a tap dripping at 1 drip per second. This was in response to the wide variance of figures given on internet websites for the annual loss, figures that ranged from 2,400 litres per annum to over 30,000 litres per annum. The more common figures given were 7,000 and 12,000 litres per annum. We conducted a number of tests from different taps. The method we used was to count the drips that filled 1 litre as the drip rate varied over time. The water was then weighed to get an accurate reading. 1 litre = 1 kg. From memory, we arrived at about 4,920 litres per annum which is about 13.5 litres per 24 hour period. Note that the drips were real life measures, not apothecaries' measure. The lower figures quoted on websites were obviously calculated by using apothecaries' measure. If you accept the above figures, your 3 month period equates to 1,230 litres at 1 drip per second. 1,000 litres = 1 cubic metre but there would have been evaporative losses. Your pipes may have also been dripping at a greater rate or maybe less. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: water usage during building 11Jul 25, 2014 12:07 pm SaveH2O If you accept the above figures, your 3 month period equates to 1,230 litres at 1 drip per second. 1,000 litres = 1 cubic metre but there would have been evaporative losses. Your pipes may have also been dripping at a greater rate or maybe less. Thats actually fairly close to my calcs. I came up with just over 1100lt over the three months. i did observe the pipes dripping at greater rates on some days, so my cals were based on an average drip rate. I used apothecary measures based on video i took initially then compared to actual with a measuring jug. The figures were pretty close (although could have been afected by different flow on the seperate days) Which is why Im still confused how a further 10,000 odd liters were used on site. For those including landscaping usage - Im only interested in the build of the structure, so I can compare aples to apples. Currently my build is structure only - no gardening or landscaping has occured to result in water consumption. Creator of superduperonium, expert at expert things, nobel laureate, can hold my breath for 10 minutes. Re: water usage during building 12Jul 25, 2014 12:19 pm We have our first water usage bill, aligns very closely with construction start and up to plate height of ground floor. Usage is 14kL over 56 days, so 250 litres per day average. That's equivalent to about 28 buckets of water a day, which when I think of it in those terms doesn't seem excessive. Re: water usage during building 13Jul 25, 2014 12:27 pm Dukecaddy We have our first water usage bill, aligns very closely with construction start and up to plate height of ground floor. Usage is 14kL over 56 days, so 250 litres per day average. That's equivalent to about 28 buckets of water a day, which when I think of it in those terms doesn't seem excessive. The problem with working out to a daily average is that you dont have builders on site every day, nor are they completing tasks that utlise water every time they are there. So true, the daily usage is not "excessive" however if you say out of 56 days 10 of those were required to to make use of water extensively (totaling say 12Klt), you start to think about where that water goes. Creator of superduperonium, expert at expert things, nobel laureate, can hold my breath for 10 minutes. Re: water usage during building 14Jul 25, 2014 2:40 pm That bill period for me aligns with siteworks, retaining, brick build-ups, slab and ground floor bricks. Apart from siteworks all tasks required water. Yes there were plenty of days with no builders on site, so the actual consumption on the days they were would be a lot higher. From what I saw the brickies didn't have a trigger on the end of their hose, so my assumption is when they needed water the tap was kept running a lot more than what was probably needed. Not great from a water-wise point of view, but their job is to build me a house, not keep my water bill in check. Re: water usage during building 15Jul 25, 2014 11:32 pm Lucky youre in perth where sandy soil is the norm. Im on jigly reactive clay, so it IS my builders job to keep their water use on site in check to ensure they comply with engineers specs around drainage Creator of superduperonium, expert at expert things, nobel laureate, can hold my breath for 10 minutes. Re: water usage during building 16Jul 27, 2014 2:18 am Ponzu Im on jigly reactive clay, so it IS my builders job to keep their water use on site in check to ensure they comply with engineers specs around drainage Good awareness. There is certainly more to consider than the cost of water when you are building on reactive soil. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: water usage during building 18Aug 07, 2014 3:02 pm I received my latest water bill. My build has used 15kl for the site prep, termite spraying and slab only. Since then I have been on tank water. 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