Bill Wall
Pay Less on the Water BIlls with Home Improvements
Is Saving Water Worth the Effort?
The availability of water in some areas, especially in the western United States, where some disputes over water rights have become downright hostile. The amount you spend on water largely depends on where you live, and there’s a wide array of cost. For example, in Chicago the average annual expense for water services in 2008 was $ 228, whereas in Atlanta it was $ 1,476. Furthermore, the recent trend of privatizing water resources has led to a price increase in a lot of markets. All of this means that it is in the interests of most people to lower their water consumption. This can be done by using less water, but there are some home improvements that you can do that will make your home more water efficient without changing many of your habits.
Installing Dual-Flush Technology
Dual-flush technology gives a toilet two different flushing options; a light flush for liquid waste and a heavy flush for solid waste. Using the lighter flush when appropriate can save as much as 3,300 gallons of water per year. This is already the standard in Europe and has been for decades, but it was exotic and expensive for the United States until just recently. Though buying a Euro-style dual flush system will cost about $ 300 in many stores, there are some conversion kits that will install the same technology in your present system for about $ 30. One of the first to offer these conversion kits was SelectAFlush (dualflushkit.com), though there are a number of similar products available today.
Switching to a Tankless Water Heater
This is another standard in Europe that has been popular there since the 1960s but is just now making significant inroads in the United States. Tankless water heaters do not involve massive tanks of hot water that sit there using energy all of the time, but instead only activate when you turn on the hot water and super heats the water for as long as you need it. Not only do tankless water heaters work far more efficiently in terms of water, they’re also cheaper to heat (electric, gas, whatever you happen to be using. Tankless water heaters can range from small, wall mounted units directly next to the shower (popular in Ireland today), to large units that provide hot water to all of your showers and sinks at the same time. Though older models were weaker and didn’t perform as well as tank heaters, the technology has come a long way and tankless heater work very well these days.
Install Faucet Aerators
A faucet aerator screws on to your faucet and mixes air into the water flow. This will reduce the amount of water used significantly, but will also keep water pressure the same. If you have newer faucets already, you probably already have aerators, but if you don’t they’re only $ 5 to $ 10 apiece, and can be easily installed on any faucet. The primary benefit is that aerators reduce the gallons per minute flow rate by almost half without sacrificing water pressure. You can install aerators on shower heads, though this means that water cools a lot faster so an aerator on a shower head might not be a great idea.
Check For and Fix Leaks
According to the National Sanitation Foundation, a leaky faucet can waste as much as a thousand gallons of water per year and a toilet leak can waste as much as 500 gallons of water per day. Faucet leaks are usually fairly obvious, so if you have any you should consider fixing them. Toilet leaks are not as obvious, so consider adding a dye tablet to the toilet tank and let it sit for a while without flushing. If dyed water enters the tank, then there is a constant leak that should be fixed immediately. Some repairs, like a faucet leak are really simple and just about anyone should be able to do it, but a toilet leak might require the help of a professional.
Bill Wall
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