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How Much Does it Cost to Fill a Paddling Pool?
Paddling pools are great fun and are fairly cheap but one important thing you need to know is how much does it cost to fill a paddling pool on a water meter.
On average it costs £2.34 to fill an 8ft paddling pool and £3.96 to fill a 10ft paddling pool on a water meter. The average cost per 1000 litres of water in the UK is between £1.87 and £5.23 depending on where you are in the country.
The larger the paddling pool you have, the more it will obviously cost to fill. As such, if you have a really large pool, you really must think about how to keep your paddling pool water clean. The really large pools may require treatment or a filter pump, so the best time to research is before you buy your pool.
How Much Water Does Your Paddling Pool Hold?
Before you can start to work out how much it will cost to fill your paddling pool when you’re on a water meter you will first have to work out how much water your paddling pool will hold.
The quickest and easiest way to work out how much water your paddling pool hold is to look at the instructions or find your paddling pool online.
If you don’t have the instructions anymore and either can’t access the Internet or cannot find your paddling pool on the Internet then you’ll have to do work out how much water your paddling pool will hold by doing a simple calculation.
How to Work out the Volume of your Paddling Pool
To work out the volume of your paddling pool all you need to do is a fairly simple calculation. The calculation is different depending upon whether you have a round paddling pool or rectangular paddling pool.
Just remember that the height figure on each is the fill line and not the actual height of the pool. If you measure to the top of the pool, the volume will obviously be a lot more than what is stated in the instructions.
How to Work out the Volume of a Round Paddling Pool
To work out the volume of a round paddling pool we use the calculation 3.14 x radius² x height. If you’ve inputted your dimensions in metres then the end figure will be in cubic metres.
So if we transfer this to a proper calculation for a round paddling pool that’s 3 metres across and the fill line is 0.5 metres high you get the following. The radius is, therefore, half of the diameter of the pool so the radius, in this case, is 1.5. When you square a number you simply multiply it by itself.
The calculation for this sized pool is 3.14 x 1.5² (1.5×1.5) x 0.5 = 3.53³
1 cubic metre of water is approximately 1000 litres so the volume of this pool is approximately 3530 litres
How to Work out the Volume of a Rectangular or Square Paddling Pool
To work out the volume of a rectangle or square paddling pool use the calculation length x width x height. If you’ve inputted your dimensions in metres then the end figure will be in cubic metres.
Working out the volume of a square or rectangular pool is much easier. Simply find the fill line and measure the height then multiply the length of the pool by the width and then by the fill line-height.
So if you had a pool that was 3m x 2m x 0.5m the volume would be 3³. In this case, the pool’s volume would therefore be 3000 litres.
You can also use a volume calculator online such as on Calculator.net.
Water Meter Company Costs Per M³ 2021
Once you have the size of the pool and the volume it holds you can start to look at how much it would cost you to fill it.
There are many different water companies across the UK and each one has a slightly different charging structure. If you are still on water rates then you probably don’t need to worry but if you’re on a water meter you need to take note of the following figures which will let you know how much you’ll have to pay per 1000 litres of water.
You may be surprised by the huge differences in prices depending upon where in the country you live.
To make things a little easier for you, below we’ve put together a table with all the English water companies and how much they charge a water meter customer per m³ (per 1000 litres). The price includes both the water and sewerage costs as this is what you would normally be charged. As you can see, depending upon where you live, the cost of filling up your paddling pool will vary considerably.
- Anglian Water £3.167
- Welsh Water £3.0396
- Northumbrian Water £1.8713
- Severn Trent £2.525
- South West Water £5.2274
- Southern Water £3.532
- Thames Water £2.3879
- United Utilities £2.78
- Wessex Water £3.63
- Yorkshire Water £3.2516
How Much Does it Cost to Fill Your Paddling Pool?
If you take the average of all the costs per m³ above it gives you a price of £3.13 per m³ of water.
To make things a little easier for you and see how much it will cost to fill your paddling pool, we’ve listed below nine of the most popular paddling pools, their capacity in litres, and the cost to fill them up based on the average costs shown above.
