Housing New Zealand and Manukau Water work together to save water and money

Manukau Water Limited and Housing New Zealand Corporation have worked together to help reduce water wastage, saving approximately $360,000 in just 12 months.

Manukau Water chief executive Raveen Jaduram approached the country’s largest landlord, Housing New Zealand last year, initiating a project to identify and fix possible water leaks in South Auckland state homes.

“We identified properties with high water consumption and together checked these homes for leaks,” Mr Jaduram said. Having identified the leaks, Housing New Zealand was then able to fix them.

External leaks might not be easily identified through normal household inspection processes, because they might be below ground or hidden within a building. So Manukau Water encourage anyone with a high water bill to check for leaking pipes, as this could be pushing up their costs.

Housing New Zealand’s regional manager Madhavan Raman said that with approximately 9,500 state properties in the greater Manukau area, he was keen to decrease any possible water wastage.

“The investigations resulted in a 9 percent decrease in water demand across our Manukau properties. In Otara alone, we reduced water consumption by 24 percent,” said Mr Raman.

To put it in perspective, the overall saving of 283 million litres is roughly equal to 28,000 milk tankers. In dollar terms this equates to approximately $360,000. The comparison is based on 12 months usage to March 2009, measured against the previous 12 months.

Manukau Water and Housing New Zealand now plan to work together on another water saving initiative. A device known as a Gizmo will be installed in older, single-flush toilets. After installation, water will only flush while a user holds down the flush button. This gives users greater control over how much water is used.

Research shows that Gizmos reduce water consumption by at least 20%, which means more financial savings and more water being conserved.