Rainwater Harvesting for Schools

Reduce your school's impact on local resources with a rainwater harvesting system

Waterscan, the UK's leading water management company, specialises in helping schools and educational establishments efficiently manage their water consumption, reducing usage and costs. Waterscan has devised a range of rainwater harvesting systems for the education sector, providing an efficient method of capturing this limited resource and reusing it, reducing each establishment's "water footprint" and ultimately saving money.

Despite the UK's high rainfall, we have relatively little water per head due to limited capacities for water storage coupled with our high population. Reducing water consumption and recycling water are ideal ways to preserve this valuable resource - and also help to reduce running costs.

Waterscan's rainwater harvesting system includes a monitoring function to measure and report on the total water saving achieved. This can be used as part of a "Water Footprint Report" which is published for every school once a year.

In addition, water costs are inevitably going to rise after 2010, as the investment required by Water Companies in essential upgrades will push costs up and the current threshold set by Ofwat expires. As water rates increase, reducing usage and recycling rainwater will become even more vital in keeping costs down.

Design, supply and installation

The procedure for installing a rainwater harvesting system starts with a site feasibility survey to assess the amount of rainfall in the area, the roof space and the size of the building. The system is designed specifically to the school's requirements taking into account building use, number of students, potential areas of use and future water demand. Waterscan can provide a complete service from survey to installation and commissioning.

Large educational premises consume significant quantities of water supplied by the local water company. This water is becoming more expensive and only a small proportion is subsequently required for direct potable use. Using rainwater appropriately as part of a complete water management project can save up to 75% on potable water bills.

The use of rainwater instead of potable water for flushing toilets, cleaning processes, irrigation etc reduces pressure on our environment and helps to conserve valuable drinking water resources.

Waterscan provides free rainwater harvesting surveys to evaluate patterns of water usage on site and suggest water conservation measures that can be introduced along with a suitable rainwater management system. Such a system could be provided as a complete package including design, installation and commissioning.

Sustainability

Water conservation is now part of the National Curriculum and Waterscan can provide an Education Pack that goes with each rainwater system. Every litre of rainwater that is re-used is counted and recorded on a monitoring screen. Waterscan also provides a web link to the system so that the school can check on how much rainwater and mains water is used in a building.

Measures such as the proposed Code for Sustainable Buildings and BS 8515, the new Code of Practice for Installation of Rainwater Harvesting, are driving water efficiency programmes forward and providing a blueprint for water efficient buildings and schools.

Waterscan's Aqua-Control rainwater harvesting technology is also included on DEFRA's Water Technology List, which promotes water saving devices and technologies. This program encourages investments in environmental technologies such as the Aqua-Control rainwater harvesting system.