Using H2OmeCalc
You can start using H2OmeCalc to examine the current water uses in your home and see how supplies (rainwater and greywater) and demands (garden and household) vary throughout the year.
Once you have inserted your information into H2OmeCalc you will get a good picture of your current situation.
You can then start using H2OmeCalc to examine the current water uses in your home and see how supplies (rainwater and greywater) and demands (garden and household) vary throughout the year. It is easy to change the data you have already entered on the top table to see how this affects your water use.
From this you will see how changes to your water sources might change your mains water supplies and demands. You may want to see the effect of installing a rainwater tank and then examine how the size of the tank or roof area used to capture the water affects the amount of water you can capture and use. Or perhaps the option of using water collected in the shower for toilet flushing is something you want to start doing, you can examine the mains water savings for this too. You may even want to see how things change if you live in a different part of the city, as local climatic conditions such as evapo-transpiration and rainfall will change irrigation demands of your garden.
Extreme climatic conditions can also be examined and you can select an option to assess rainfall scenarios which are less than the average. For example, a value of 73% can be used to indicated some of the drier years experience in Melbourne. A value of 29% would be unrealistically dry. An indication of wet and dry years is provided in the rainfall variation table.
Some questions you may explore using H2OmeCalc about your home water use and possible water savings may include:
- Would a greywater system be better than a rainwater tank, as it does not rely on rainfall?
- What type of greywater systems would be best for the situation in your house and garden?
- Is it best for you to plumb rainwater to the toilet so there is a year round demand for water, and how much will this cost?
- What are the costs and benefits of a bigger rainwater tank or accessing more roof area to collect the rainwater form?
H2OmeCalc should help you to answer some of these questions and help you to decide whether greywater use is a good investment, by giving a good estimate of the volume of water generated and indicative costs.