The paper presents an analysis of daily water consumption for household purposes carried out within one year in a selected rural household. The study was undertaken because so far the guidelines for designing rural water supply systems have not been updated for a very long time and needed verification. It involved a comprehensive system for measuring water consumption equipped with automatic readers and data recorders. The research clearly showed that actual water consumption was much lower than that provided in the current guidelines, and confirmed significant variability in water consumption for household purposes depending on the day of the week. Moreover, variability of water consumption within a year, determined by daily variation coefficient, was found to be much higher than that provided in the guidelines.