Use the search bar to search for answers to common questions about the hosepipe ban or view the lists of FAQs below

A hosepipe ban means you must not use a hosepipe for non-essential water use, including:  

• watering gardens, including using a sprinkler or irrigation system  

• filling paddling pools, hot tubs, swimming pools, ponds or fountains  

• washing cars, patios, driveways or windows with a hosepipe.   

However, there are some exceptions to the ban, for example where water is being used by a business or where customers are on our Priority Services Register. Even if you are exempt from the ban, we’d ask you to be careful with water to help safeguard supplies.  

The hosepipe ban applies to customers in the Tiverton, Cullompton, Bampton, Honiton, Dunkerswell, South Molton, Axminster and Lyme Regis areas. You can check if your area is affected by the hosepipe ban by entering your postcode in the postcode checker on this page.

It depends on where your drinking water is treated and stored. This hosepipe ban only affects customers supplied from a specific treatment works.  

We have enough untreated water available from our sources, but our water treatment works is currently operating at its maximum capacity. During periods of exceptionally high demand, as we are seeing with the extreme heatwaves, we cannot treat water quickly enough to keep up with how much is being used. The hosepipe ban helps reduce non-essential water use so we can continue supplying essential water for drinking, cooking, washing and sanitation.

Our water treatment works are producing as much treated drinking water as they can. Water treatment is a complex process that takes time to ensure the water meets strict drinking water quality standards before it reaches your tap.

 During periods of exceptionally high demand, we can't increase production beyond the treatment works' capacity. That's why we're asking customers to reduce non-essential water use, helping us maintain reliable supplies for essential everyday needs such as drinking, cooking, washing and sanitation.

Periods of prolonged hot and dry weather mean people naturally use much more water than usual, particularly outdoors for activities such as watering gardens, filling paddling pools and washing cars. We are currently seeing an extra 5.4 million litres of water demand in the area every day.

This increase in demand means our water treatment works are having to produce much more treated drinking water than normal. While our treatment works are operating at full capacity, they can only produce a certain amount of water each day.

Introducing a hosepipe ban helps reduce non-essential water use during these peak demand periods, so we can continue to provide drinking water for essential everyday needs such as drinking, cooking, washing and sanitation.

Our teams have been working around the clock on a range of interventions to protect water supplies in the area. These include using tanker vehicles to add water to the network, rerouting water around our network, putting more resource into fixing leaks and asking businesses with high water use to reduce usage where possible.

During the heatwaves our teams have:

• Deployed additional tankers to transport water into the network from wider areas 
• More than doubled the number of leak detection workers and repair teams working around the clock to repair leaks in the area
• Made adjustments to reroute water into the network from surrounding areas under less stress

As soon as we see demand return to normal levels and can be confident that our treated water storage levels have recovered, we will lift the ban.

You can:

• Use water for things like drinking, cooking, showering and washing your clothes
• Use a watering can or bucket
• Wash your car at a commercial car wash

We’re taking a number of steps to help maintain water supplies, including bringing in extra water with tanker vehicles, moving water around our network from areas under less stress, more than doubling our number of leak detection teams and working with businesses to reduce their water use where possible.  

We’ve also increased monitoring and staffing to help manage the situation, including staffing the local water treatment works 24 hours a day for over three weeks to ensure it is consistently operating at full capacity.

Looking ahead, we’re investing in improvements to our network and pumping stations to make it easier to move water around the region and strengthen supplies.