Project: Where Does Our Water Go

The driving question

How much water does this place use, where does it go, and what is the cheapest thing we could change.

Why this one works

Water is measurable, visible, and almost always being wasted somewhere. The investigation produces a number, and a number changes what adults are willing to do.

How it runs

Weeks one and two: find every input and output. Taps, hoses, cisterns, rainfall, drains, the places it pools.

Weeks three and four: measure. A bucket and a stopwatch on every tap. Rainfall in a straight sided jar. Cistern volume from the manufacturer or by displacement.

Week five: find the losses. Drips, running cisterns, hoses left on, and where runoff goes rather than soaking in.

Weeks six and seven: cost the losses over a year and propose one fix.

Week eight: present to somebody who controls a budget.

What gets produced

A water audit with real figures, a costed proposal, and a before and after measurement if the fix is made.

Where it goes wrong

Proposing several things at once. One costed fix with a payback period gets approved. A list of ten suggestions gets filed.

Related

Project Tracker is the one page planning sheet for any of these.