Notifications

Choosing water efficient appliances can make a massive difference to a household’s daily water use.

The amount of water toilets, showers, taps, washing machines and dishwashers use can vary greatly from one make or model to the next. A water-efficient washing machine can use less than half the amount of water per cycle as a same-sized inefficient model.

The New Zealand Water Efficiency Labelling Scheme (WELS) provides consumers with information about how efficiently products such as washing machines, showers and taps use water – via labels on new products in shops and showrooms.

How the WELS labels work

The WELS label displays two key pieces of information:

1. a star rating indicating relative water efficiency
2. a water use or water flow figure

Each product label displays a star rating out of six – the more stars, the more water efficient (showers currently have a maximum star rating of three, as there is not yet a laboratory test to ensure very low-flow shower products deliver acceptable performance.