Water audits offer detailed information to targeted classes of users.   An audit includes a customer-specific on-site survey of water usage patterns and specific recommendations for increasing water efficiency.  It may also involved distributing and/or installing water-saving devices.  Audits can be conducted for both indoor and outdoor use for residential and nonresidential customers.

Some utilities offer audits to all residential customers; others target a subset of residences based on water use or on housing type (for example, age of housing stock, or single family houses only, or high water use households only).  Residential audits can include indoor, outdoor, or both.  Non-residential audits may also include both indoor and outdoor evaluations.  Some commercial and institutional customers with large landscapes may be good targets for outdoor water use audits, similar to those described in the residential outdoor audits section.  

Indoor water use audits for large commercial, industrial, and/or institutional users can be highly site-specific and require specialized knowledge of the systems and processes involved.  Industrial users may be hesitant to allow auditors access to systems for confidentiality reasons, and may be unwilling to commit the time required for a complex audit.   In communities where industrial users are a large source of year-round water demand, improving process water efficiency with these users may substantially reduce year-round water use

In order to improve the likelihood that the recommended measures will be implemented and the potential water savings will be realized, audit programs might require participants to implement some of the measures recommended by the audit (e.g. those with no more than a specified payback period) or be charged the price of the audit.

15.a    The Commonwealth should establish a funding program and guidance to support water audit programs 

15.b    MAPC should explore opportunities for joint purchasing of water audit services

15.c    Water suppliers in stressed watersheds should require mandatory water audits, at the time of sale or when existing residences connect to the public water supply 

15.d    Watershed organizations should expand educational landscaping and water conservation workshops for customers

15.e    Nurseries and community organizations should collaborate to make native, low-water plants a staple of fundraising plant sales

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