Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common House Water Usage

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

I can't offer any specific answer as we (Mosaic Commons in central MA)
don't meter our CH water usage (or any other water usage) separately. But I
don't really understand why you would measure water use by building rather
than by person? It seems to me that water usage won't be different if a
person is doing their laundry in the CH vs. if they were doing it at home,
or hosting a guest who takes showers and uses the toilet in the CH rather
than hosting that guest at someone's home. If 10 households come to a
common meal, that is 10 households who would otherwise be preparing a meal
at home, and thereby using up water.

When we were doing our projections for developing our community and trying
to predict usage of water or other utilities, use of roads, use of local
schools or any other resource, the town was mostly concerned with total
number of bedrooms, as a rough proxy for number of people, because that's
the gating factor for how much natural or community resources we will use.
(As a result, we had to specifically agree to having our otherwise lovely
attics NOT be used as living space, because more living space -> more
people (in theory) -> more resource usage.)

Diana

On Fri, Nov 29, 2024 at 11:13 AM Joel Bartlett <altairecovillage [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

> We at Altair EcoVillage (Philadelphia area) need to compare our
> project with what a typical development would have.  The Common House is
> not "common" to most developments, so it presents a special case.  We
> certainly have to add it in to the overall water usage of the community if
> we are doing an honest comparison.
>
> So, does anyone have any water usage records we can start with?  Our
> assumptions:
> -two laundry machines
> -three guest rooms
> -community meals three times a week
> -public meetings once a week
> -high-speed dishwasher
> -main floor rest rooms
>
> Anyone care to take a shot at this?
>
> Thank you in advance,
> Joel Bartlett, R/A
> Project Manager for the Members
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