WATER AUDIT AT CHURCH

Our practical challenge today is to do a water audit at church. This can be a fun activity to be done with the youth or Sunday School.  You will need a notebook or paper to make spreadsheet.

 

  1. Running water:
  • Find the water meter …. Take a reading
  • Turn off all other water users
  • Fill pot/bucket by running water for 30 seconds
  • Take another water reading
  • Calculate how much water is running through the pipes, in litres/minute or litres per second
  • If hosepipes are used for gardening or washing cars or paving, find out for how many minutes and calculate the amount of water used per day.
  • Enter onto your spreadsheet

 

2 Toilet and basins for hand washing

  • Lift the cistern lid
  • Hold water tap off and flush the loo
  • Keeping the intake water closed off, use your measuring bottle to fill the cistern, measuring how much water is used.
  • Find out how many times a day the toilet is flushed, and calculate the amount of water that is used during the day. Repeat for any other toilets.
  • Wash your hands in the basin, and calculate the amount of water you use.

 

  1. Kitchen water use

Calculate the amount of water used for an event – e.g. a church service on a Sunday

  • If cooking a meal, how many pots and using your measuring bottle, calculate how much water is used to cook food.
  • Kettle/urn – how much water does the kettle/urn hold – use your measuring bottle to find out
  • How many times is the kettle boiled to make enough tea?
  • For washing up, what size sink or bowl is used (use your measuring bottle to calculate the volume)
  • How many bowls, sinks of water does it take to wash up the pots?
  • Are the pots, cups, plates etc. rinsed as well?
  • Where does the water go? Down the drain or onto the vegetable garden?
  • For washing cloths and for washing the floor: how much water per week (no of buckets) and no of times the floor is washed per week.

All this information is added onto your spreadsheet

PLACE WHAT AMOUNT OF WATER USAGE PER WEEK
e.g Hall Toilet Cistern 5 liters per flush  5 x 200 flushes = 1000 liters

 

This audit is provided by the South African Faith Communities Environmental Institute (SAFCEI)

www.safcei.org

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