Town Tools builds free, public tools for Bulawayo and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.
From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/bulawayo-bulawayo-province-zw/water-planner
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
2,900 L
Stored now
75 L
Used per day
5 × 15 L
15 L
Per person, per day
Bare minimum
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.
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.
These are estimates
These are estimates from published per-person figures, not a measurement of your household. Real use varies a lot — with the weather, with laundry day, with how many people are actually home, and with whether anyone is sick. Treat the answer as a planning figure, and trust your own experience over it.
The delivery interval is typical, not a schedule
The four days this page plans against is a rough middle, not a schedule. Bulawayo's shedding programme has run at 48-hour, 72-hour and much longer cycles depending on dam levels and pump breakdowns, and it differs suburb by suburb — some households have described getting water only from Saturday to Monday. Check the current programme and what neighbours are reporting before you rely on any interval, including this one.Check whether water is flowing right now: Is the Water On? — the current programme and neighbour reports.
This is arithmetic, not health advice
This tool does the arithmetic and uses published per-person water figures; it is not advice on drinking-water safety or health. Stored or tanker water may need treatment before drinking — follow official guidance.
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.