Lay My Hat

We’ve just had our high season water bill come in and I’m wondering how much water other French gite owners that have a swimming pool on their property consume during this period.

Hi LotBoy, I can't be precise because I only get full year utilisation numbers, and we now live here full time. But annual use varies around 210 to 240 cubic metres and I would estimate that say two-thirds of that is in summer, due to extra demand from pool and garden-watering.
Naturally, usage would vary widely with the number of guests you have. But there are two of us for twelve months, so if you averaged 4 guests for six months during the summer, your annual usage should be comparable to ours.
Sorry it's not more precise, but I hope this helps.

Mols

How long is a piece of string?
In France water meters are usually only read once a year, and the month the meter reader passes can vary (here from July to September). On half-yearly billing, one bill is an estimate, the other is based on the last reading.
Is your current bill an estimate or based on a meter reading, LotBoy? And when was your meter previously read for billing purposes?
How big is your pool? How many guests and family are with you? Do you use tap water for watering your garden (when allowed to do so)?
Why not, from now on, read your meter on the first of every month? Also note down how many people are living on your property each month, and whether your pool has been significantly topped up during that time.
Witihin a couple of years you'll know where you are.

I agree with Circe's suggestion if you really want to be able to plan your spending on water.

How much is used depends on so many factors. The pool re-filling and watering the garden depends on the weather. The 'domestic' consumption for dishwashing, washing machine, showers etc. depends on how many people in the house and the 'demographic' of the guests. (Older people tend to be more conservative in their use of water.) Again, if it is very hot weather guests may be taking two showers, at least, a day and washing clothes more or not washing them at all because they are by the pool in swimming costumes all day.

I would say it is almost impossible to compare one gite with another or even one year with another in the same gite.

Thanks for all the suggestions and advice. I’ll have to start a water use log once our last guests leave to get a baseline.

While I expected peak season consumption to be rather higher than off season, I wasn’t expecting it to be 10 times higher.

Will be running overnight leak tests, but I’m thinking that 3 gites with washing machines, dishwashers and guests with young families could be the main culprit as I doubt that I’ve replaced more than a quarter of the volume of the pool despite it needing a centimetre or two top up every other day when the pumping running 24/7.

So I assume the gites are rarely occupied over winter? I can see that three families with attendant use of machines could rack it up! Certainly you should check for leaks, but it’s quite possible that it’s natural usage.
Your pool top up sounds a bit excessive, I have to top up ours by that much maybe every two weeks, and we’re a tad further south than you. Look for leaks there perhaps.
Do you really need your pump running 24/7, that’s going to damage your EDF bill!

Mols

Yes as Mols says, why is your pump running 24/7, that's certainly not needed. Our pool gets topped up roughly once a month - Brittany - bit more rain than most.

We have an 8000L cisterna and our villa usually has 6 guests (we sleep eight), plus us 2 on site, in summer every week.
We order 10,000L each week normally. 8000L in to the cisterna and the remainder tops up the pool.

In the off season, with just us 2, we only reordered a tank of water every 6 wks.

The difficulty is that you can't tell what guests will use. Some really do abuse the water supply and others have normal useage. But an average was a tanker a week (10k L)

I also agree that no way should you be running your pump that long! We only run ours 6 hrs at the height of season. Our pool is 9m x 4m.

Mousie
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So Mousey, I figure your annual usage is roughly 320 kltrs, or cubic metres. That’s not out of line with my figures, given your longer season and higher people numbers.
If LotBoy is using way over that, amended for his higher guest numbers, I would think there’s a problem somewhere.

Moliere wrote:So Mousey, I figure your annual usage is roughly 320 kltrs, or cubic metres. That’s not out of line with my figures, given your longer season and higher people numbers.
If LotBoy is using way over that, amended for his higher guest numbers, I would think there’s a problem somewhere.

Agreed Mols.

Mousie
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LotBoy, you could fit a supplementary meter to your pool, or indeed one to each gite and to any watering system if you really want to see how much water is being used for each purpose.