How Long Will My Water Last?
Work out how many days your stored water lasts, whether it reaches the next supply day, and what a day's ration looks like for your household.
When the water comes on, the question is always the same: how much do I need to catch to get through to the next time? This works it out. Put in what you can store, how many people are in the house, and how carefully you are using it, and it tells you how many days that water lasts and what a day's ration looks like.
It is plain arithmetic on published per-person figures, worked out in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or saved.
Everyone the stored water has to cover.
At this ration
Your water lasts about 38 days
at 15 L a day
This should reach a typical delivery (about every 4 days).
The numbers
Making it stretch
Fill the big container first
Water pressure often drops before it stops. Start with the tank and the largest drums while the pressure is still up, and top up the buckets afterwards — the small containers fill from the big ones later anyway.
Keep drinking water separate and covered
Set aside a covered container that is only for drinking and cooking, and take from it with a jug or a tap rather than dipping a cup. Stored water goes bad from what gets put into it far more often than from how long it sits.
Flushing is usually the biggest single use
A full cistern flush can be 6 to 9 litres. Bucket-flushing, and only when needed, is the change that moves the numbers on this page more than any other.
Reuse the washing water
Water from washing clothes or dishes will flush a toilet perfectly well. Keeping a bucket under the basin costs nothing and takes a whole category off your clean-water total.
Work out your own containers once
A standard drum is 210 litres, a big bucket about 20, and household tanks are usually marked with their size. Add yours up once and write the number down — then this page takes ten seconds instead of a guess.
These are estimates
The delivery interval is typical, not a schedule
This is arithmetic, not health advice
Who to call
Bulawayo City Council is the water authority here — burst pipes, no water when the programme says there should be, and billing queries all go to the council, not to us. If you are drawing from a borehole, a shallow well or any source you are not sure about, health workers have warned about typhoid and cholera in this city: boil it or treat it before drinking, especially for children.
- Bulawayo City CouncilWater-shedding notices, faults and billing. The council also publishes a WhatsApp line for meter readings.
- Dam Levels — how full the city's supply dams areThe figures behind how severe the shedding gets.