The point of the device is awareness. You don’t realize what you are wasting when you can’t quanitify it. My mother and I go back and forth when she visits about her washing the dishes by hand. If I had the quantifyable evidence to use th dishwasher, she would change her behavior, but I don’t have it. Some of use do change our behavior when evidence is presented.

http://www.silfra.it/default.asp?Page=4&From=1&IdCat=RT&IdProd=QP

and as a DIY project:
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Foot-Taps-to-Conserve-Water

I firmly believe that a meter attached to a faucet (an amalgamation between the first and the second example) will help people (small and big) identify waste and conservation potential.

I certainly would buy these meters for faucets in my household and give them as gifts to my family and friends. Is anyone making them?

Kind regards,
Katherine

Thanks,
Sean Darras

If you’re interested, you can find more info at http://jordanfischer.com/energy_awareness.htm

The Melbourne nappy is a basin liner that catches the waste water from teeth brushing or hand washing.

Granted, this doesn’t prevent over-use of water in the first place, but it’s a clever way of making some grey water usable without alterations to the plumbing.

I think, as Crosbie says, that sensible redesign of bulk users/wasters of water such as toilets to make use of grey water or rainwater is more likely to reduce water consumption significantly than monitoring usage at the tap itself. Do building regulations mean that all new houses are built with two water ‘circuits’? If not, why not? Can the problem be solved by putting the economic onus on householders, or should it be on the water companies themselves?

However, if usage meters/displays really do have an impact on changing user behaviour, then they perhaps ought to be fitted to toilets, garden hoses, etc as well.

As Niblettes says, these meters could well be replaced by systems which actually help the user use only an appropriate amount of water rather than ‘increasing guilt’. The Eco Kettle, for example, takes this attitude, as would the pedal-operated tap Niblettes suggests.

We might also think of taps with sensors as used in some hotel bathrooms, so that the tap will only run when there is something under it, and cannot be left running – better than a timer, but more complex than a sprung/damped slow-return valve as used in lots of public toilets.

I know in the UK a certain percentage of people resent the water companies, which are in effect privatised monopolies (you cannot choose your water supplier) and which often seem to be rather hypocritical in the way that they exhort customers to save water whilst failing to keep their own houses in order in that regard.

The resentment means that some people do not willingly reduce their water usage, since a) it seems as thought it will make no difference compared to the vast other wastage, and b) if not on a meter, they will still pay the same rates. I would think that discounts such as Crosbie suggests in his first post would have a positive effect here, since householders would genuinely feel they were ‘getting one over’ on the water companies.

The economic ‘waters’ are also muddied (greyed, perhaps) by the tension between metered customers who will be less profitable for the water company if they actually do save water, and people whose bill is determined purely by the rateable status of their house and is unlinked to their actual water usage. I don’t know which group is actually more profitable for the water companies: it would be interesting to see an analysis.

These meters seek to control the user, when it would be much simpler to control the the water flow instead. And given the kids of tasks people perform with running water, they won’t reduce use–they just increase guilt.

The problem is that your hands can’t both control the flow of water *and* perform that task for which the water is running in the first place.

The simple solution is allow another body part to control water flow. So for example, water flow could be controlled by a pedal. You need water to rinse a plate, no problem. Hold the plate, step on the pedal, and then release it the instant your plate it done. Your still using water, but you’re not wasting any of it.

I’m just not entirely convinced that persuading people to think twice before pouring themselves another glass of water is a better way to persuade them to convert to grey-water toilets and rain-water butts than good old fashioned economic incentives.

This is why water is tricky. It’s not the small quantities that people are most aware of consuming that need moderating, but the large quantities that get flushed down the drain unnoticed (using toilets like litter bins).

Why do hotel rooms make a big deal in their bathrooms affixing signs exhorting the reuse of towels, rather than encourage showers over baths or economical use of their duo-flush toilets? I suspect it has something to do with the higher cost of laundry labour (than water) rather than concern about impact on the environment.

So, make the water bill attract a discount according to the proportion of toilets you have supplied with grey water (as opposed to fresh water).

All loos fresh (none grey) = 0% discount
Half loos gey = 25% discount
All loos grey = 50% discount

As the cost of water increases, people will twig when the installation of grey water systems are worth the halving of the water bill (subject to inspection at householder’s expense).

As for a point-of-use, consumption awareness meter, a better place where this should be installed is at the outside tap (which could also be counted as a toilet cistern).