Table 12: The variants of practice performed by five single occupancy households of close to average overall PCC of water. Household Water use (litres per day) Practice Gardening Washing Laundry A 159.8 Casual gardening [Not calculated – missing data] - Attentive clean laundering B 143.7 Casual gardening Simple daily showering On demand outsourcing C 148.4 Hands off gardening Attentive cleaning Simple home laundering D 165.7 High tech gardening Simple daily showering On demand outsourcing E 148.6 Hands-off gardening Simple daily showering Simple home laundering The UKWIR (2016) project looked at patterns of water consumption for 62 households that were fitted with the Siloette logger which enables micro component analysis of consumption. They found three groupings with distinct patterns of use focussed on the peak morning usage. These were identified as “early risers” (peak use 6.00-8.00), “transitionals” (8.00-10.00) and “late risers” (10.00-12.00). The “early risers” and “transitionals” showed diurnal use patterns with a clear peak use whereas the late risers showed very little diurnal pattern in water use. Again, as the authors highlight this is a small sample size but what it provides is a possible way of looking at patterns of use. Figure : Grouped bar chart of PCC by micro-component, for the three groups (UKWIR, 2016) In the final part of the project they link the patterns of use with household and property types as they had survey data for the properties that had their consumption monitored. In effect they bring together individual, social and material data to describe the three consumption groups. What they explore is the extent to which it might be possible to predict membership of one of the types of use groups solely from survey data, which if possible would give a way of water companies targeting water efficiency interventions. Table 13 provides a summary of that information together with suggested approaches to targeting water efficiency campaigns. No information was available in the literature reviewed about the application of these approaches in practice.
Tap insets Universal plug Shower timer Dual flush converter – ecoBETA Cistern displacement device - Save a flush Cistern displacement device – Hippo Shower head Water butt voucher Water butts Bath buoy – to remind people not to overfill the bath Fat trap – to collect fat in the kitchen to prevent it from going down the drain Leak alarms Trigger hose gun Hanging basket gel Essex and Suffolk Water offered customers a water saving kit, as shown in Table 16. This is a standard approach for the larger water companies, with many having them available for customers to send off for on a website and others providing home installation. Table 16: Example contents of a water saving kit Products offered in the Essex & Suffolk Water, water saving kit Shower aerator – to reduce the water used during a shower (claims to save 30 l/day) Save a flush – to install in a toilet cistern saving water per flush (claims to save 12 l/day) Tap insets – to reduce the flow from a tap during every use (claims to save 36 l/day) Universal plug – universal plug size which fits to all sinks (claims to save 12 l/day) Shower timer – to encourage a 4-minute shower by timing the duration (claims to save 5 l/day) These were delivered in a number of ways: Self-install – customers send off for a kit and install it themselves
‘Bits and bobs’ is a water efficiency measures programme which involves a free household visit to carry out a water audit and retrofit of a number of products combined. During the visit water saving tips and advice is also given to the customer to help save water around the home. A questionnaire was also filled out to gain information about: bathing habits, number of showers and baths, number of toilets, water using appliances etc. Additional information such as occupancy, ACORN group and property type were also collated. Table 17 provides an example of an intervention where an engagement approach was used in order to encourage the uptake of water saving devices. This is discussed further in the next section. Box 5 provides an example of water advice given out by the Energy Savings Trust. Table 17: Examples of water saving devices and engagement intervention (Riley and Openshaw, 2009) Project Twerton Wessex Water Efficiency Trial (Wessex Water’s retrofitting project) Population 156 flats in Twerton, Bath Interventions Device fitting: ecoBETA dual flush devices were installed by plumbers explaining to residents that they were water-saving devices. Social / Engagement approaches: Door-to-door canvassing informing residents and providing them with a range of materials such as pledge cards, a promotional flyer for a water saving event, shower-timers and fridge magnets ‘Water Saving Day’ community event held at the local village hall as an educational intervention Box 5: Example of telephone advice calls (Energy Savings Trust and Waterwise, 2011) Inbound telephone advice ‐ water advice provided on to customers telephoning the Advice Centre. In most cases, people were not calling about water specifically, but the advisors would include the topic in the conversation as an additional benefit. Outbound telephone advice ‐ water advice provided on the telephone through proactive outbound calling of existing Advice Centre customers. In most cases these were people who had contacted the Energy Saving Trust for a non‐water topic such as insulation, or had had a recent successful energy saving measure installed by the energy saving trust. Online information provision: smart meters and web-based interventions Several publications describe interventions or designs that explore the potential for using smart meters:
Appendix 3: List of documents reviewed Author Year Title Relevance score Robustness score Ashton, V., Lawson, R., Marshallsay, D. and Ponsonby, K. 2015 Water efficiency evidence base statistical analysis 2.6 1.8 Bithas, K. 2008 The sustainable residential water use: Sustainability, efficiency and social equity. The European experience 2.2 2.6 Bremner, S. and Jordan, D 2012 Investigating the Impact of Water Efficiency Educational Programmes in Schools - An Evidence Base Project 2.0 2.2 Bremner, S., Jordan, D., Omambala, I. and Tompkins, J. 2013 Customer Experiences of Home Retrofit Products - An Evidence Base Project 2.0 1.9 Bremner, S., Jordan, D. and Omambala, I. 2012 Improving Uptake in Home Visit Retrofit Programmes - An Evidence Base Project 1.8 1.8 Browne, A., Pullinger, M., Anderson, B. and Medd, W. 2013 The Performance of Practice: An alternative approach to attitudinal and behavioural ‘customer segmentation’ for the UK water industry 2.7 2.7 Browne, A.L., Medd ,W. and Anderson, B. 2013 Developing Novel Approaches to Tracking Domestic Water Demand Under Uncertainty-A Reflection on the "Up Scaling" of Social Science Approaches in the United Kingdom 1.8 2.8 Chenoweth J., López-Avilés A., Morse S. and Druckman A. 2016 Water consumption and subjective wellbeing: An analysis of British households 2.3 2.6 Cominola, A., Giuliani, M., Piga, D., Castelletti, A. and Rizzoli, A.E. 2015 Benefits and challenges of using smart meters for advancing residential water demand modeling and management: A review 1.8 2.8 Consumer Council for Water and Southern Water 2016 Beneath the Surface: Customers’ Experiences of Universal Metering 2.0 1.7