Activity 2.2.1 – My Daily Water Use

My Daily Water Use

Name of Water Calculator                             URL                                      My Per Person Usage

San Antonio Water System                               N/A                                           65.34 gallons per person

Broward Water Partnership (Florida)       https://www.watercalculator.org/     
                                                                                                                                 192 gallons/day 

                                                                                                                           48 gallons/person

City of Bellingham, Washington     https://www.cob.org/services/utilities/pages/water-calculator.aspx                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                           137 gallons/day

                                                                                                                           34.25 gallons/person

I live in a home with 4 people. Our water bill estimated our water use for the month of January 2020 at 8,977. Which is ALOT! We use more of our water than the average water usage in our neighborhood which is 6,419 and more than the average SAWS residential water use which is 5,695.  I definitely do not like the sound of that. The way I got 65.34 gallons per person from our water bill is by adding up the last 3 months of water use which is November - 8,219, December - 6,325, January - 8,977 = 23,521. To get the average use of those 3 months I divided 23,521/3 = 7,840.33. And because there are 4 of us living in this house I divided 7,840.33/4 = 1960.08. To estimate how many gallons we use per day I divided 1960.08/30 = 65.34. I am a little bit disappointed to know how much water we do use. I have been trying to get the rest of my family members on board with watching how much water they use so hopefully in the next month we see progress to reduce the amount of water usage. I know the "Broward Water Partnership" water calculator added virtual water to the household water usage but I deducted those gallons to make sure to only use the water that is being used at home. So I ended up with 192 gallons per day and that divided by 4 people is 48 gallons. I'm surprised by how the gallons per person keeps decreasing with each water calculator but of course, they do not have the actual amount of measurements of water usage, unlike our water supplier. They are able to get the gallons from our meter reading. Besides the small leaks we have at home that need to be fixed, I will make it a mission to help out by using less water myself and reminding my family members as well. This calculation has definitely opened up my eyes. I rarely see the house bills so now I'm glad I have. I get to be able to make a great change for the environment.