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What Is An Off Grid Water Supply?

The start of a new year is the perfect time to make a few resolutions that could benefit your business greatly over the next 12 months – and if one of your top priorities at the moment is to save money, you might want to start looking into an off grid water supply.

 

If you use a lot of water at work, perhaps you’re a hotel, pool and leisure complex or a hospital for example, you may find you’re able to see huge savings by taking yourself off the grid where your water supply is concerned.

 

Those of you that use anything more than 30,000 cubic metres of water a year should really consider investigating this as a very real option, as you could potentially supply your entire site at a fraction of the cost that you’re currently paying your water supplier.

 

This kind of water supply simply means taking yourself off mains water and looking to underground water sources to supply your company. It certainly doesn’t seem to make much sense to pay more for something you could get for a lot less and for medium and high water users an off grid supply can make a massive difference to your bills.

 

Water from below ground is abstracted from aquifers, filled with rainwater that soaks through the soil and is absorbed through porous rocks found underground like chalk and limestone. Once this process has taken place and the water finds itself stored in these rocks, it’s able to move and start collecting in big spaces underground – ripe for abstraction via alternative water supplies.

 

This water is typically pumped into service reservoirs to be treated and then pumped through the pipes to reach your site. Customers pay a set rate for this water – but you can save yourself a pretty penny if you go off grid.

 

Here at H2O Building Services, we recently completed an alternative water supply job for the prison service in Surrey. A survey of the site revealed that the prison in question was built on a big underground water source that had been used to supply the old Banstead Hospital before it was demolished.

 

We recommended that the prison construct an off grid supply to abstract the water and reduce its costs substantially. Ironically, the local water company actually abstracted water from the very same aquifer and then resold it back to the prison before we came in and made a few changes!

 

Similarly, we were also recently commissioned to drive down water costs for a big Yorkshire-based manufacturing plant – which used an awful lot of water each year. We compiled an alternative water supply feasibility study and report, which found that the plant would be able to save £100,000 a year on water charges.

 

Water audit expert Graham Mann said at the time: “From an idea to reality this is fantastic news, and now with water deregulation well underway in the UK we are using this event to push forward with a national campaign as we can undercut the water company supply charges by substantial margins.”

 

If you’d like to find out more, get in touch with us today.

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