Earlier this month, Delta Faucet Company and the Environmental Protection Agency paired up to help homeowners save more than 7 million gallons of fresh water annually. The event took place in nine cities, including Boston. Water-saving plumbing fixtures were installed by volunteers. Fixtures included faucets, showerheads, toilet valves, and flow regulators.
Even if you missed this particular opportunity, you can still put water-saving fixtures to work in your home. Low-flow toilets can use less than a gallon of water to provide an impressive, bowl-clearing flush. If you don’t want a low-flow toilet, you can also install a special dual-flush valve that reduces your water consumption. The dual flush valve allows you to flush and clear the bowl with running water, rather than using the 2 or 2.5 gallons that are stored in the toilet tank. This low-consumption flush is good for clearing liquid waste. When the flush is complete, the bowl refills with running water.
Water stored in the tank is used only when you need to “power-flush.” These dual-flush valves can reduce your toilet’s water consumption by one-third to one-half. They’re also easy to install, adjustable and are available at most home improvement stores.
Water-saving showerheads can limit flow to no more than two gallons of water per minute while still providing an excellent rinse. These fixtures are also available at your local home-improvement store are easy to install. In most cases, the shower fixture has a threaded connector. Simply disconnect the old one and connect the new one. You can also install an inline temperature control for your shower that can help prevent scalding injuries. Just like the showerhead, the inline temperature regulator is threaded and simply screws into place.
A leaking faucet that drips at a rate of once every 6 seconds can waste about 700 gallons of water per year! That’s significant when you look at your overall water consumption. Put another way, that’s the same amount of water you’d use showering daily for a month, or doing about 25 loads of laundry using a large-capacity washing machine.
Sometimes a leaking faucet requires a simple adjustment to stop leaks, but depending upon the faucet’s design, you may need to replace the entire fixture to stop a drip. Replacing a faucet isn’t hard and requires only a few basic hand tools, like a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench. The effort is definitely worth it when you consider how much water you can save on an annual basis.
If you have leaking sink, tub or toilet fixtures and you can’t address them yourself, please contact us at Boston Standard Plumbing & Heating at (617) 362-0377 . We can recommend low-consumption fixtures that will address your leak problem and save water in the process!
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Categories:
DIY Plumbing, Tips and Tricks, Toilets
