Conserving Water in the Bathroom

Making a Faucet Change

One of the best things you can do to improve the water efficiency of your bathroom is to make a few changes to your faucet. In fact, the EPA estimates that approximately 15% of the water used in a home is used through its faucets. In the United States, this means that over a trillion gallons of water pass through faucets.

Although Federal law requires new faucets to have a flow rate of no more than 2.2 gallons per minute, the reality is that most older faucets have a flow rate of 3 to 7 gallons per minute and most bathroom faucets only need to have a flow rate of 0.75 to 1.5 gallons per minute in order to get the job done right.

Installing aerators and laminar flow devices are two great ways to reduce the flow rate of your bathroom faucets - and these handy little devices cost only $2 to $30. Aerators add air to the water stream coming from your faucet, which reduces its volume while keeping the flow rate the same. The downside is that the flow of the water can vary with the line pressure. Laminar flow devices, on the other hand, produce several parallel streams of water and are able to provide a constant rate of 1.5 to 2.2 gallons per minute.

Looking to the Shower

You can also improve the water efficiency of your bathroom by making some changes to the showerheads. Current Federal regulations require showerheads to have a flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute or less. You can check the flow rate of your current showerhead by placing a gallon bucket beneath your shower. If it takes less than 24 seconds for the bucket to collect a gallon of water when your shower is turned on full blast, you have a flow rate of more than 2.5 gallons per minute. The good news is that changing out a showerhead is an easy job and you can purchase some great showerheads for less than $100. Yet, with this investment, you can easily save $40 or more per year in water saved.

Turning to the Toilet

The toilet can also be a major water waster. Simply replacing a toilet with a 5 gallon per flush rate with one with a rate of 1 to 1.6 gallons per flush can reduce your total water usage by as much as 25%. So, if you live in an older home with a less efficient toilet, you should seriously consider replacing it with a high-efficiency model.

If your toilet is in good working condition and you don't want to shell out the money for a new unit, you can always conserve water via displacement. You may have heard of people placing bricks in their toilet tanks to reduce the volume of water used per flush. While this is an excellent way to conserve water it introduces some debris into the system which could damage your toilet over the long run. A better alternative might be to fill one or more plastic bottles with sand or water and place them in your toilet's tank. Make sure you position them away from any moving parts so it doesn't prevent your toilet from functioning properly.