Engineering ToolBox - Resources, Tools and Basic Information for Engineering and Design of Technical Applications!

Water Supply - Calculating Demand

Calculating expected demand for water supply service lines.

Sponsored Links

The total theoretical demand for a water supply system can easily be calculated by adding known maximum demand for all fixtures in the system. Due to the nature of intermittent use this will unfortunate add up to unrealistic demands for the main supply service lines. A realistic demand for a supply system will always be far less than the total theoretical demand.

Expected demand in a water supply system can be estimated as

qet = qnl + 0.015 ( Σqn - qnl  ) + 0.17 ( Σqn - qnl  )1/2                                           (1)

where

qet = expected total water flow (l/s)

qnl = demand of largest consumer (l/s)

Σqn = total theoretical water flow - all fixtures summarized (l/s)

Note that minimum expected total water flow can never be less than the demand from the largest fixture. This equation is valid for ordinary systems with consumption patterns like

  • homes
  • offices
  • nursing homes
  • etc.

Be aware when using the equation for systems serving large groups of people where the use is intermittent, like in 

  • hotels
  • hospitals
  • schools
  • theaters
  • wardrobes in factories
  • etc  

For these kind of applications, like a wardrobe, it is likely that all showers are used at the same time. Using the formula blindly would result in insufficient supply lines.

Example - Main Water Supply to a Nursing Home

If the theoretical demand from all fixtures in a nursing home adds up to 50 l/s and the larges fixture requires 0.4 l/s, the expected water supply demand can be estimated like

 qet = (0.4 l/s) + 0.015 ((50 l/s) - (0.4 l/s)) + 0.17 ((50 l/s) - (0.4 l/s))1/2

    = 2.3 (l/s)

Total Theoretical Water Flow and Expected Flow

Expected demand for a supply system at different total theoretical demand can based on the formula above be expressed as

Total Theoretical Demand Summarized
(liter/s)
Expected Demand
(liter/s)
0.2 0.2
0.8 0.4
1.6 0.5
4.0 0.6
8.0 0.85
15 1.1
20 1.5
30 1.8
40 2.1
65 2.8
70 2.9
100 3.7

The maximum fixture load is 0.2 liter/s.

Water supply - expected demand

Sponsored Links

Related Topics

Related Documents

Sponsored Links

Engineering ToolBox - SketchUp Extension - Online 3D modeling!

3D Engineering ToolBox Extension to SketchUp - add parametric components to your SketchUp model

Add standard and customized parametric components - like flange beams, lumbers, piping, stairs and more - to your Sketchup model with the Engineering ToolBox - SketchUp Extension - enabled for use with the amazing, fun and free SketchUp Make and SketchUp Pro .Add the Engineering ToolBox extension to your SketchUp from the SketchUp Pro Sketchup Extension Warehouse!

Translate
About the Engineering ToolBox!

Privacy

We don't collect information from our users. Only emails and answers are saved in our archive. Cookies are only used in the browser to improve user experience.

Some of our calculators and applications let you save application data to your local computer. These applications will - due to browser restrictions - send data between your browser and our server. We don't save this data.

Google use cookies for serving our ads and handling visitor statistics. Please read Google Privacy & Terms for more information about how you can control adserving and the information collected.

AddThis use cookies for handling links to social media. Please read AddThis Privacy for more information.

Citation

This page can be cited as

  • Engineering ToolBox, (2008). Water Supply - Calculating Demand. [online] Available at: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-supply-expected-demand-formula-d_1076.html [Accessed Day Mo. Year].

Modify access date.

. .

close

3D Engineering ToolBox - draw and model technical applications! 2D Engineering ToolBox - create and share online diagram drawing templates! Engineering ToolBox Apps - mobile online and offline engineering applications!

Scientific Online Calculator

Scientific Calculator

3 10

Sponsored Links
.