Do I Need A Business Water Audit?

A business water audit can help quickly identify inefficiencies that may be causing your water consumption to be too high. Water efficiency is crucial to ensuring you're not overspending on your business water bills.

Reducing water consumption is great for your pocket, but it’s also great for the environment. A comprehensive water audit can provide recommendations on how you can improve water efficiency.

In this article, we’re not only going to show you exactly how a business water audit works, but we’re going to help you find the best way to get it done too. Whether you would like to conduct your own desktop audit or seek a more professional commercial water audit, we will break down what a water audit involves providing you with everything you need to know to combat those business water bills.

What Is A Business Water Audit

Put simply, a business water audit is a process which helps your company identify how it can save money on water bills. It most often includes an analysis of infrastructure, supply and drainage.

Infrastructure analysis tells you how you can optimise your equipment to save water. In the service industry, for example, water audits will often focus on adding water-efficient fittings such as tap aerators. Though a simple change, a tap aerator could allow a business to save up to 8 litres of water per minute.

Analysing your business water supply allows you to assess whether you can save on business water at the source. Auditors will also check your water bills for discrepancies. After this, a plan will be created to allow you to reduce water usage and lower water bills. This might include swapping to a new water plan.

You can do all of this yourself, but you might choose to hire an auditor; in the next section, we will explore the benefits of this.

Do You Need To Buy Business Water Audit Services?

Like with many business investments, a business water audit might seem like an unnecessary cost but it can save you a lot of time and money in the long run. Business water audits will identify any issues, list recommendations on how much the issue is costing you and recommend any water efficiency measures you can introduce to save money.

Whilst you can do your own free water audit, you will likely not have the equipment to identify all areas of water consumption and come to comprehensive solutions. We're not saying that doing your own isn't useful, however. Many companies can bring their utility bills down on their own by conducting simple audits.

There are two types of business water audits offered and they don’t come with the same costs associated. While a comprehensive audit provides a real deep dive into water use, a simple water audit provides a high-value option if you’re looking for something more inexpensive.

A simple water-saving audit will focus on business processes and day-to-day activities to determine whether more water is being used than is needed; a comprehensive audit will involve a site survey and extensive reports on the findings. The auditors will estimate the savings you can generate from each recommendation and benchmark your company against similar organisations. Both of these activities also prove the return on investment of the water audit.

How To Do Your Own Business Water Audit

If you decide not to go with either of these options and to handle your business water audit yourself, there are a few key steps to follow.

1. Prepare some desktop research and find a recent water bill. This provides you with some context about your current water usage. Keep this handy - you will need it later.
2. You should then walk around your business premises inspecting and noting down every water outlet, carefully looking for any water waste, leaks and anything that draws your attention.
   
   
3. Take a water meter reading. You will usually find this outside your business premises. Make note of this and then take another reading in exactly one week. Make sure it is an average work week and this will provide a weekly average.
   
   
4. Fix any leaks and dripping taps as soon as possible.
   
   
5. Start to introduce water-saving devices to taps, kitchen areas and any other areas that use water. Water-saving devices can save you a significant amount of money on your water bills annually. Flow restrictors are particularly popular for cost savings when introducing new measures.
   
   
6. Repeat the meter readings. Each one week apart after you have installed your new devices compare them to your last set of readings.

From here, you can slowly keep introducing ways to make savings on your water usage. This might mean simple practices such as turning the tap off or it might mean introducing water-saving fixtures and analysing whether your water costs are too much.

No matter where you are up to with your water audit, compare business water rates and easily find out if you are paying too much with our quick calculator. Completely free, this finds the best water rates in just seconds.