No-cost water saving
Posted on Jan 07, 2009 under Off-Grid, Self Sufficiency, Water | 5 CommentsLooking for ways to lower water usage in our household, I decided not to use the big rainwater tank we have. The tank is just too far away from the house. A considerable investment would have to be made to be able to use the water in the house. Still, we want to use less water, after our little pipe problem, more then ever.
The best place to start saving precious tap water would probably be the toilet. A few gallons of water are washed down every time you flush the toilet, often needlessly. Saving water and money can easily be achieved by reducing the amount of water that it flushed down the toilet.
A standard toilet will empty it’s water reservoir each time you push down on the lever or yank the chain. All we have to do is modify the internals of the reservoir a bit to let the toilet flapper cut off the water flow as soon as you let go of the handle. The exact modification needed depends on the type of flapper installed in your toilet.
Some flush systems have a floater that keeps the toilet flapper open. If the floater is attached to the flapper, you might be able to remove the floatation device altogether. When the floater is integrated into the flapper, drilling a hole into the float will disable it. You could also add some steel washers or other weight to counteract the floatation device.
The flapper in our toilet is the float and it couldn’t be drilled without making the flapper leak, so I had to add some weights to it. The toilet now only lets the water flow as long as you hold down the handle, as soon as you let go the water stops. This saves a lot of water and still leaves you with enough flushing power for the big boys.
Some companies sell special weights or other devices to achieve the same effect, but I think it is ridiculous to buy these if you can simply use some old junk to accomplish the same. The reason you want to use less water to flush your toilet is either because you want to save money, live a little greener or both. Not buying a commercial device for this purpose will save you money and save the environment because you will not have the packaging to dispose of.
January 8th, 2009 at 5:08 am
Toilets account for approx. 30% of water used indoors. By installing a Dual Flush toilet you can save between 40% and 70% of drinking water being flushed down the toilet, depending how old the toilet is you are going to replace.
If you are serious about saving water, want a toilet that really works and is affordable, I would highly recommend a Caroma Dual Flush toilet. Caroma toilets offer a patented dual flush technology consisting of a 0.8 Gal flush for liquid waste and a 1.6 Gal flush for solids. On an average of 5 uses a day (4 liquid/ 1 solid) a Caroma Dual Flush toilet uses an average of 0.96 gallons per flush. The new Sydney Smart uses only 1.28 and 0.8 gpf, that is an average of 0.89 gallons per flush. This is the lowest water consumption of any toilet available in the US. Caroma, an Australian company set the standard by giving the world its first successful two button dual flush system in the nineteen eighties and has since perfected the technology. Also, with a full 3.5″ trapway, these toilets virtually never clog. All of Caroma’s toilets are on the list of WaterSense labeled HET’s http://www.epa.gov/watersense/pp/find_het.htm and also qualify for several toilet rebate programs available in the US. Please visit my blog http://pottygirl.wordpress.com/ to learn more or go to http://www.caromausa.com to learn where you can find Caroma toilets locally. Visit http://www.ecotransitions.com/howto.asp to see how we flush potatoes with 0.8 gallons of water, meant for liquids only. Best regards, Andrea Paulinelli
January 8th, 2009 at 5:17 am
Andrea, thanks for all the numbers and the lovely links! If you are building a new home or bathroom it would make sense to buy a toilet with dual flush water saving.
Our toilet doesn’t need replacing yet, so I think it would just be a waste of money to buy a new toilet, when a simple and effective water saving feature can be added at no cost.
January 24th, 2009 at 5:56 am
I’m using the jug method to save water, works quite good!
January 24th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Sam, I don’t really like the jug-method. Sure, it is very easy and doesn’t cost anything, but when you are in need of a little more flushing-power, you’ll have to wait for the reservoir to fill up again.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Not sure if this is the same as the jug method mentioned above, but I put a water bottle (full of water and sealed with the lid into the tank. The amount you flush (or the amount of water that fills the tank)is thus reduced by the volume of water in the bottle – displacement is the term, yes? If you know ahead of time that you may need the full flush, I just take the bottle out and put it back when the tank starts to fill up again. We have 1 low-flow toilet in the house and two that are not…we just didn’t want to go buy new toilets when we can use this simple method.