Until very recently it was standard to just not have a water meter at all. My grandma used to have an actual swimming pool in her garden(built all by herself, of course), and during the summer she would just refill it every few days, it was cheaper than buying some chlorine tablets since water was "free". Just trying to guess the dimensions of that pool now, that must have easily been 30 cubic metres of water, every few days.

My neighbor made moonshine in his barn. For cooling he just put a garden hose from his house to the barn and let the water flow for a day or two constantly. The water cooled the distillery and just spilled into the garden behind the barn and down the hill.