Water Conservation Made Easy
Water Conservation made easy – It is no secret to those of us who live in Maine, that even with recent heavy rain, we remain in our third year of drought!
What can we as individuals do to help? It is easy to say, “Conserve water”, but what does that mean? We still need to use water and we use a lot of it. Statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency claim that the average person uses 100 gallons of water per day with 70% of that being used in the bathroom. What a great opportunity that is to save!
Water Conservation means replacing older, inefficient plumbing fixtures with new water saving fixtures will not only help to conserve water today but they will continue saving water for the life of the fixture. Replacing a 1.6 gpf (gallon per flush) toilet or older 3.5 gpf with a 1.28 gpf or dual-flush toilet is the first place to start. Research and development into water saving designs has led to the availability of toilets that have superior flush quality using a fraction of the water. Some very good quality options are available from Kohler, American Standard and Toto. How about showers? Surely there must be room for improvement there? The current Federal Mandate for showers restricts single shower heads to 2.5 gpm (gallons per minute) @ 80 psi. Some shower valves have a volume control which enables the user to reduce the gpm of the shower. If your shower control does not have a manual volume control, replacing shower heads with low- flow alternatives with flow rates as low as 1.8 gpm can save a significant amount of water during a ten minute shower. If you have been considering updating your bathroom, help conserve water while giving your bathroom a fresh contemporary look. If a remodel project is not on your “to-do” list a quick fixture change will accomplish the same result.
How much water is wasted while waiting for hot water to arrive at the faucet after you turn it on? Hot water in the pipes cools when unused and that cool water needs to be run out before hot can be delivered to the faucet. Hot water recirculation pumps can eliminate that waste and wait time by circulating hot water from the water heater. Easily installed in usually 1 day, a hot water recirculation system will not only save water but it will also save time.
Call the MCES office today to schedule a no-cost quote or to learn more about our water saving plumbing fixtures.