Yard water consumption info

Sussexbythesea

Sussexbythesea

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Apparently our yard water bill is extortionate. I don't know the detail yet but I think it might be brought up at our yard meeting tomorrow.

The figure I've heard quoted seems to be massively out of proportion to any water that we could have possibly used. I've being doing some back of a fag packet calculations and even if I took that figure and doubled it it would be nowhere near the figure quoted. I've only heard this second hand so the figure could be wrong but if not it would seem that either the water meter is wrong or there are some huge leaks somewhere.

We share our meter with other parts of the farm but we always get the blame for high water usage. No one is deliberately wasteful but of course there are needs such as drinking, hay soaking, bathing, bucket washing, leg-washing etc. That can use up a fair amount. Sewage is to septic tank and yard run-off to soak away as far as I know so wastewater should be none or low. But even if included doesn't account for the high bill.

I wondered if anyone had calculated average yearly water usage per horse as a comparator? I.e. You've used 100 cubic metres in a year and have 10 horses therefore it's on average 10 cubic metres per horse per year?

Also do you have any water saving things in place to reduce water wastage?

Many thanks :)
 
I use approx 8-10 cubic litres a year, this is for 3 ponies. Field tanks, yard water buckets, occasional baths, horsebox hosing, random car cleaning.
All comes from my 1 tap, which is metered as a Field Supply.
If I have summer liveries, I let them know that most water usage is included, but if autumn bill is extortionate then they would need to contribute.
 
Not worked out per horse but my bill did go up and up which turned out to be leaks in several places, if the farm bill is going up then the first thing to do would be to check the meter reading, then turn off all taps and see if the dial is still going round, if it is there is a leak it will continue turning, it took a while to get it sorted as there turned out to be 2 and the pipes were not easy to find.
 
Sussexbythesea said:
I wondered if anyone had calculated average yearly water usage per horse as a comparator? I.e. You've used 100 cubic metres in a year and have 10 horses therefore it's on average 10 cubic metres per horse per year?

Many thanks :)
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A cubic metre isn't very much! If you soak hay, in a hay soaker, you are using a cubic metre or more each soaking. Washing a horse once might use a cubic metre. As might cold hosing a leg for 30 minutes. My yard of 23 horses fills 3 hay soakers a day.
 
My yard uses approx 60 cubic metres of water per year, I don't think about water or how much I use, I am on business rates
this covers 4 horses/ponies at present, small flock of sheep and goats, I empty all self filling water troughs once a week, car cleaning, jet washing stables or yard, shampooing, normal stuff like bucket washing, boot washing etc. I use a haygain when needed (less water than soaking but this is quite recent and I used to soak hay if need be)
I also have a neighbour who usually turns up once a week for free water, he brings huge containers and lugs them back in his car (Don't ask its complicated!) and I make gallons of tea and coffee :)
 
I have a 1000 litre bowser and use on average 2-3 of those a week for my 4 horses, to include drinking water in stables and field, soaking hay for all of them, (also stable and field at this time of year, but just 1 bale a day in summer) washing buckets and feed bowls, washing the floor of the washroom when it gets slippy, and on average one bath a week for 1 pony.

Luckily for me I have a private water supply :D
 
Our yard has its own meter. We pay about £36 a quarter...not sure how many cubic metres that is but we don't stint and that includes any standing charges.

That's for two horses, chickens and all car washing and outdoor household use. We don't soak hay but do soak wood pellets. Field troughs are regularly tipped out and cleaned, every day in summer so this is where most of our water usage goes.
We could probably almost halve that if we were being tight.
 
Filled the swimming pool one year. Cost 3 grand as we were still reg as a farm business. But we fought it as we were domestic and had been for 10 years - we just had to take out all the water troughs before the inspection and throw a few leaves on the pool lol The inspector was dead on and said it was a leak in the field
 
wingedhorse said:
A cubic metre isn't very much! If you soak hay, in a hay soaker, you are using a cubic metre or more each soaking. Washing a horse once might use a cubic metre. As might cold hosing a leg for 30 minutes. My yard of 23 horses fills 3 hay soakers a day.
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A cubic metre is a thousand litres so a fair amount. There are only 4 of us who soak hay and we use 75litre tub trugs to soak our hay so I've used 300litres per day as a figure for my calculations.
 
sychnant said:
I have a 1000 litre bowser and use on average 2-3 of those a week for my 4 horses, to include drinking water in stables and field, soaking hay for all of them, (also stable and field at this time of year, but just 1 bale a day in summer) washing buckets and feed bowls, washing the floor of the washroom when it gets slippy, and on average one bath a week for 1 pony.

Luckily for me I have a private water supply :D
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That's useful I've estimated 515 cubic metres (515,000litres) per year for 13 horses - if I use your upper figure it would equate to 0.75 cubic metres per horse per week and x that by 13 that comes to 507 cubic metres per year so very close.
 
Cecile said:
My yard uses approx 60 cubic metres of water per year, I don't think about water or how much I use, I am on business rates
this covers 4 horses/ponies at present, small flock of sheep and goats, I empty all self filling water troughs once a week, car cleaning, jet washing stables or yard, shampooing, normal stuff like bucket washing, boot washing etc. I use a haygain when needed (less water than soaking but this is quite recent and I used to soak hay if need be)
I also have a neighbour who usually turns up once a week for free water, he brings huge containers and lugs them back in his car (Don't ask its complicated!) and I make gallons of tea and coffee :)
Click to expand...

I've estimated more than double what you use per horse and that's just for horse stuff. We don't jet wash anything or clean field troughs very often either. Most automatic waterers are cleaned out once per week. Not much bathing goes on either as a fair few semi-retired.

Even with massive over estimation the bill would be nothing like what I've heard. If I confirmation of the 5 figure quarterly bill tomorrow I might astound you all with it! :D
 
The Fuzzy Furry said:
I use approx 8-10 cubic litres a year, this is for 3 ponies. Field tanks, yard water buckets, occasional baths, horsebox hosing, random car cleaning.
All comes from my 1 tap, which is metered as a Field Supply.
If I have summer liveries, I let them know that most water usage is included, but if autumn bill is extortionate then they would need to contribute.
Click to expand...

Cubic litres? That's a new unit I've never heard of before.
 
cobgoblin said:
Our yard has its own meter. We pay about £36 a quarter...not sure how many cubic metres that is but we don't stint and that includes any standing charges.

That's for two horses, chickens and all car washing and outdoor household use. We don't soak hay but do soak wood pellets. Field troughs are regularly tipped out and cleaned, every day in summer so this is where most of our water usage goes.
We could probably almost halve that if we were being tight.
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Mine is around that but I’m billed 6 monthly. I was surprised at how cheap water is. That’s for 4 ponies 3 pigs, assorted ducks and chickens and cleaning cars.
 
Do check what the bills are for - a local club has a small portacabin with 1 loo with sink, and 1 kitchen sink, 1 kettle etc. I'd say the site is used a max of once a week in the summer ,for a dozen kids and their parents, often the portacabin isn't unlocked if nobody wants the loo, there's no fridge for milk so nobody makes tea, and it's not used at all from clock change to clock change . Recently they got billed for mains sewage from a different company than the water company - the water company has sold the sewage side on, and they were charging at a rate about 30 x the amount they're billed for water (£13/ quarter or might be a month springs to mind which would tie in with Cobgoblin- it's very very low). The portacabin has it's own septic tank, last emptied about 8 years ago, it's clear the water company just passed on the names and addresses of their customers and the sewage people are billing all even if in error! The treasurer didn't know about the septic tank as she wasn't aware of the last time it was emptied as that was before her time, so could easily have paid it had it been similar in £ to the water bill, it was only queried as it was so high!
 
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4 horses and on a yard with 2 auto fill troughs, i would say we wash horses and legs more than most.

no hay soaking.

hose also used for car washing.

its £120-£180 per year.
 
For a large yard (approx. 50 horses in winter, sometimes more in summer), we average 30m3 per horse pa. That is with automatic water troughs, a small flat and a leak.

We had a bad leak last winter which over doubled our consumption, even then we didn't hit a 5 figure bill for our 6 monthly invoice.
 
Thanks everyone so far it seems our bill is nothing like what it should be even when using top end estimation. It will be interesting to have the conversation later if the meeting goes ahead.
 
Our water bill was £200 a quarter but we found a leak and now it's half that amount but £400 a year is very high. That's for 5 horses and four adults. We have 4 bathrooms and a total of 6 toilets including the livery toilet. Occasionally I have left a hose running filling a bucket and flooded the yard so there have been some unintentional mistakes that have wasted water. So annoying when they happen.
 
Batgirl said:
Definitely check for leaks! An automatic water trough in a nearly unused field sent ours skyward.
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I think they've just been around and checked all the troughs. There were at least a couple over-topping slowly in the resting fields due to the ball-cocks not working properly so that won't have helped. Our tack room tap is trickling constantly at the moment and it's been reported at least twice.
 
Wagtail said:
Our water bill was £200 a quarter but we found a leak and now it's half that amount but £400 a year is very high. That's for 5 horses and four adults. We have 4 bathrooms and a total of 6 toilets including the livery toilet. Occasionally I have left a hose running filling a bucket and flooded the yard so there have been some unintentional mistakes that have wasted water. So annoying when they happen.
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Is that just for water? Are you on mains sewerage?

Sewerage including surface water drainage seems to be more than double the cost of water supply. I'm only going by online prices for our local water company.
 
Ive worked it out now...

We use about 16cubic metres of water per quarter after standing charges. Probably at least 3-4 cubic metres are for uses other than horses....so about 12 cubic metres for two horses for 3 months.
Of course, the first horse is the most expensive water wise because of field troughs and adding further horses in is more economical. We didn't really notice any difference when we had three horses because all that really changed was additional stable buckets and the odd bath.
 
wingedhorse said:
A cubic metre isn't very much! If you soak hay, in a hay soaker, you are using a cubic metre or more each soaking. Washing a horse once might use a cubic metre. As might cold hosing a leg for 30 minutes. My yard of 23 horses fills 3 hay soakers a day.
Click to expand...

I was about to agree with you but 2 gallons (1 bucket) = 0.01 cubic meters so if a horse drinks 2 buckets/day for a year thats 6.6 cubic meters and 3.3 for the rest doesn't sound much (I used an on-line conversion tool).
A large tub trug as a hay soaker uses 0.1 cubic meters (probably only 0.08 as you don't fill to top and it gets wider to the top) but that would be another 14cub mtrs if you only soaked one container half the year (we don't have to soak for all the horses).
So basically I agree with you other than that you use 1 cubic metre for your hay soaker but then I don't know what you soak hay in and how many nets etc it takes!
(wish I knew how to do the little raised '3' to write as CM3....)
 
Sorry I know this is a zombie thread but didn’t want to start a new one.

How does farm/horse use compare with domestic use?

im trying to work out how much to allow for 10 horses per month but my domestic use for a 3 bed house, is £30 a month which is obviously £360 per year which peeps here are saying is a lot even for a farm

Im thinking to allow £300 a month, is that too much?
 
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