In recent years, iterative computational techniques have been considered as the most effective methods to tackle the problem of Water Distribution System (WDS) minimum-cost design. Given their stochastic nature, these approaches involve a large number of hydraulic simulations in order to obtain suitable results. Herein, a WDS design methodology based entirely on hydraulic principles is presented. This methodology, named Optimal Power Use Surface (OPUS), focuses on both reaching low-cost designs and diminishing the number of hydraulic executions (iterations), by establishing efficient ways in which energy is dissipated and flow is distributed throughout the system. The algorithm was tested in four well known benchmark networks, previously reported in the literature. OPUS proved that following hydraulic principles is a fair choice to design WDS, showing plenty of potential in other water distribution mathematical modeling applications and offering an alternative for the extensive search process undertaken by metaheuristics.