THE Recent dry spell and soaring temperatures has seen demand for water rocket, says the region’s water company Severn Trent.
It said on Wednesday last week, May 20, the eight million people across the Midlands it serves used an extra 350 million litres of water yesterday as they basked in the sun and high temperatures – an increase of 30 per cent extra water per household.
Doug Clarke, water resources manager at Severn Trent, said: “The water we provide to our customers is top quality drinking water, and at the moment we all need more water for handwashing and keeping clean.
“But we also know that, with so many more people at home, loads of you are doing DIY, getting the paddling pools out and getting your gardens looking lovely, especially as it’s time to get your bedding plants and seedlings in.
“We reckon watering gardens or cleaning cars with hosepipes or getting the paddling pool out is behind the increase in water we’ve seen and we want everyone to have fun and keep their homes and cars looking great, so we’ve also got some top tips we can offer everyone.”
His top tips are:
When watering plants, use a watering can rather than a hose, and don’t worry about the lawn because it’ll bounce back once it starts raining again, so put the sprinkler away. A sprinkler can use as much as 1,000 litres of drinking water in just one hour – which is more water than a family of four would normally use in a whole day.
Get a water butt – or two – it’s a great way to save water when it does rain and the water can be used for the garden when it’s dry – discounted water butts are available on the Severn Trent website.
Think about planting water efficient plants such as Blanket flower (Gaillardia), Sea Holly (Eryngium amethystinum) or Euphorbia – Severn Trent also has free ‘swell gels’ available on its website
Clean the car with a bucket rather than a hosepipe or pressure washer, it’ll save loads of water and help keep bills down.
Check to see if you have a leaky loo – free dye is a;sp available on the website to help people see.
Doug added: “Our reservoirs and other water sources are in a healthy position at the moment, but while we need to save the great quality drinking water for handwashing and of course drinking, we wanted to give some tips for gardeners.”
Severn Trent is giving away lots of freebies to help customers to save water at www.stwater.co.uk/savewater.
