Saving water
Top tips to save water and energy
Water bills for Londoners increased by 31% in April 2025, with average annual water bills in Kingston now more than £600.
We interviewed Giles Read, Director of Kingston’s Fuel Poverty support service Warm Home Better Health, to ask for his top-tips to help people save water and energy.
Often water saving is overlooked when we people think of ways to save energy and money, but heating water can constitute up to a third of your energy bill. Here are my top-tips to save energy and water.
Get a water meter if you can
I’m often asked by service users, “But won’t my water bill go up if I get a meter?” In 17 years of supporting households in Kingston, 95% of people who had a meter installed reported saving 15% or more on their bill. By getting a water meter, you only pay for what you use, so you save both on water costs and the energy costs to heat water if you can reduce your usage.
Use your grey water!
“Grey water” is wastewater from household activities like showering, bathing, washing dishes, and laundry, but not sewage (this is known as Black water!) Grey water can be used for water household and garden plants. I collect grey water from washing up dishes by washing them in a washing up bowl. Once the dishes are clean, I take the bowl out into the garden and use it to water the plants and lawn.
You can also collect grey water from baths and showers. If you have a combination boiler that takes time to heat up shower water, have a bucket on hand in the shower and collect the cold water from the shower head until it’s hot and usable instead of letting the water run down the drain. I leave the bucket to dry and take it out to the garden to water plants and the lawn in the evening – I managed to grow the lawn from seed using just grey water – no hose needed!
Shorter showers / lower bath levels
I’m often asked “Isn’t it much better to have a shower, don’t showers save water?” The answer to this is that it all depends on how long the shower is. Showers use between 5 and 15 litres of water a minute, and the average bath holds 80 litres when full. This means that a shower that runs at 10 litres a minute would use 80 litres of water – the same as a full bath – in just 8 minutes!
During outreach events I often ask people what they think the ideal length of shower would be and have heard answers of 20 minutes or more. A 20-minute shower running at 10 litres a minute uses a whopping 200 litres of water. Cutting the length of time you are in the shower or lowering the level you fill a bath (does it really need to be to the top?!) saves both water and energy as you heat less water. Also, the more people in your home that can save water and energy in this way means greater savings on your bill – see how much you can save.
Get a water butt
If you have a garden, installing a water butt is a fantastic way to collect rainwater to water your plants and lawn for free. You can install water butts that connect to your guttering down pipe, or if you have a shed or other garden building, you can also set up guttering that can fill the water butt from the rainwater run off coming from the roof. Easy to install, and now with water bills going up, a great way to save money as well as water.
You can find more ways to save water and energy on the Energy Saving Trust's website.