South Staffs Water asks customers to be water wise as hot weather causes spike in demand for treated water
Posted: 28 May 2020
The sunniest April on record, followed by a hot and dry May, has led to a big increase in the demand for treated water from our customers – that’s roughly 100 million litres more than on a ‘normal’ day.
With most people spending more time at home due to COVID-19 and using more water during the warmer weather we are seeing increased demand across our water supply network. Our key workers are working round the clock to keep up with customer demand, which is now running at over 400 million litres of treated water each day.
We're asking customers to take a few simple steps to be more water wise and avoid any unnecessary use of water.
Our reservoirs and other water sources are in a healthy position at the moment and we have sufficient volumes of water to meet the demand.
With so many more people at home at the moment we have seen increased demand for water. The warm weather has added additional pressure across our network and we are asking customers to think very carefully about their use of water.
We believe watering gardens, cleaning cars with hosepipes or getting the paddling pool out is behind the increase in water we’ve seen over the last few days. We are asking customers to support our water wise message. We’ve got some top tips on how we can all do this and more can be found on our saving water pages.
Pete Aspley, Wholesale Director, South Staffs Water
Top tips
Simple tips to save water and protect the environment, while also keeping safe during the COVID-19 crisis:
- When watering plants, use a watering can rather than a hose. Don’t worry about your lawn, it will bounce back once it starts raining again, so you can put the sprinkler away. To put things into perspective, a sprinkler can use as much as 1,000 litres of drinking water in just one hour – that is more water than a family of four would normally use in a whole day!
- Think about planting water-efficient plants, such as Blanket flower (Gaillardia), Euphorbia or sunflowers – we offer free sunflower seeds on our website here.
- Clean your car with a bucket rather than a hosepipe or pressure washer, it’ll save one and a half buckets per minute (15 litres) by switching to a watering can or bucket to wash the car instead of a hosepipe and help keep your bills down.
- Save just under one bucket (9 litres) per minute, if you have a shorter shower.
- Check to see if you have a leaky loo – available LeakyLoo strips here to help you save.
We're also giving away lots of free water-saving devicesto help you save water.
Tips to help you save water
Read our water saving tips and find the ones which suit you