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Water
Efficiency



FOR YOUR HOME



Products and advice which
save water, energy, and money




Third Edition

Rocky Mountain Institute



Water Efficiency for
Your Home:

Products and Advice Which Save
Water, Energy, and Money

Third Edition



John C. Wood well, Jim Dyer, Richard
Pinkham, and Scott Chaplin



Rocky Mountain Institute is a nonprofit research
and educational foundation. Our goal is to foster the
efficient and sustainable use of resources as a path to
global security. If you would like a free publications
list and more information about RMI's other areas of
research — energy, agriculture, economic renewal,
transportation, green architecture, and security —
please write to us at 1739 Snowmass Creek Road,
Snowmass, CO 81654. RMI appreciates your tax-
deductible support.

Rocky Mountain Institute gratefully acknowledges
research grants in support of its water research from:

Ruth H. Brown Foundation

William H. Donner Foundation

GAG Charitable Corporation

George Gund Foundation

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation

New-Land Foundation

Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation

777 Fund of The Tides Foundation

Wallace Genetic Foundation

RMI does not solicit or accept fees from any manu-
facturer or vendor and does not advertise for, or make
any claims regarding the performance or other charac-
teristics of, particular products. Some data on perfor-
mance have been provided by manufacturers and
have not necessarily been independently verified by
RMI.

RMI has used ordinary professional care in prepar-
ing this publication. The Institute and its employees
accept no responsibility for the direct, indirect, or inci-
dental consequences of any errors or omissions. Actual
savings to the consumer may vary from the savings
stated here.

Copyright (C) 1995 Rocky Mountain Institute. All rights reserved.



Foreword



This booklet is published by Rocky Mountain
Institute to help individuals improve the water
and energy efficiency of their homes and save
money in the process. New products and tech-
niques allow today's households to use a third
less water than those of a decade ago, without
sacrificing comfort or changing lifestyles.

Although this booklet is designed for home
owners and tenants, the ideas it advances can be
applied on a larger scale: your neighbors, com-
munity, and water utility can all take advantage
of the broad benefits that efficiency provides. The
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, City of Los
Angeles, and communities and utilities across the
country now encourage water-efficient products
and practices. Your community can do the same.




Rocky Mountain Institute's resource-efficient headquar-
ters in Old Snowmass, Colorado.



I



The Wider Benefits of
Efficiency in Water Use

You can save a lot of water, energy, and money
by using water efficiently. Today's state-of-the-art
efficient fixtures provide service equal or superi-
or to their old, inefficient counterparts, but don't
have to cost any more. By facilitating efficient
water use, the advice and devices mentioned in
this booklet can:

• Cut your water and sewage fees by 35% or
more.

• Improve the quality of your shower, and
allow twice as many people to get a shower
before the hot water runs out.

• Cut your annual water-heating bill by
$20-40 (up to three times this amount if you
heat water with electricity).

• Reduce or eliminate the problem of an over-
flowing cesspool or septic tank (or the ulti-
mate headache, a backflowing toilet), poten-
tially saving the hundreds of dollars it
would cost to build or expand a leachfield.

• In new construction, enable you to install a
much smaller septic leachfield than you
would otherwise have to install, with hun-
dreds of dollars in savings.

• In new construction, allow you to save
money by installing a smaller water heater
(if you had planned to install a 50-gallon
heater, a 30-gallon heater may be more than
large enough if you use efficient fixtures).

• Protect the environment. Water not con-
sumed can save a river from a dam and wet-
lands from destruction, while water not
heated with fossil fuel means oil or gas not
depleted, coal not burned, carbon not
released to cause global warming, and sul-
fur not deposited as acid rain.



2



Here's Where Your
Residential Water Goes



Typical inefficient indoor use:
80 gallons per person per day

Toilet Leaks (5%)




U.S. indoor residential water use is estimated
to average 80 gallons per person per day in
homes without efficient fixtures. Outdoor use
varies tremendously: your use could be insignifi-
cant or, if you have a large lawn which requires
watering, it could be more than 200 gallons per
person per day. To be certain, compare your win-
ter and summer water bills.

Save Water, Painlessly

If your water use is anywhere near the nation-
al average, you can probably save a third or more
of the water you now use at home. The easy pro-
gram described in this booklet will show you
how. Replacing your water-wasting fixtures with
efficient state-of-the-art products will be an easy,
money-saving project. Redesigning your land-
scape with colorful, durable, native, and drought-
resistant plants will be equally rewarding.

Start your retrofit program with your shower-
head. The money saved on your water-heating



3



bill, in addition to the savings on your water and
sewer bills, will repay your investment in less
than a year. The money you save on reduced
energy use can in turn finance the rest of your
retrofit program.

To learn where you can save more water, read
on.

Showerheads: Save
Water and Energy, Too

For less than $20, you can cut the water use of
your conventional showerhead by 25-75% with-
out sacrificing the quality of your shower. If
you're using a conventional showerhead with an
optional washer or flow restrictor to limit its
delivery, you can still save more water and sub-
stantially improve the quality of your shower by
removing that device and using a high-perfor-
mance showerhead instead.

To check the flow rate of your existing shower-
head, turn the shower on all the way and see how
long it takes to fill a one-gallon plastic jug. (You
may have to cut a piece of the neck off the jug so
it will fit over the showerhead.)



Time to Fill Jug (sec) Flow (gpm)



10 6.0

15 4.0

20 3.0

24 2.5

30 2.0



If your showerhead fills a one-gallon jug in
fewer than 24 seconds, it's using more than 2.5
gallons per minute (gpm) and should be replaced
with a more efficient model. If the jug takes more
than 24 seconds to fill, you already have an effi-



4



cient showerhead.

The flow rate of your old showerhead, the
number of people taking showers, the length of
those showers, and the price you pay for energy
and water all will affect your financial savings.
Annual savings of $20-40 are common for a fam-
ily of three people — your savings may be twice or
three times this amount if you heat your water
with electricity, which is more expensive than
natural gas.

Showerhead — elec.
water heater

70 I I 1



60

50-
40-



Showerhead — gas
water heater



Savings or
NOW account



Certificate of
Deposit



7% 100%
Rate of Return



It makes good economic sense to invest in a water-
efficient showerhead.



Those savings make a $20 low-flow, high-per-
formance showerhead an excellent financial
investment: $20 in a 7% certificate of deposit takes
10 years to return $20 in interest, while a savings
account takes more than 20 years to do so. In 10
years, your efficient showerhead will easily
return 10-40 times its cost in saved energy alone,
not counting the value of the saved water.

There are many excellent showerheads on the
market, but not all are as efficient as those
described here. When buying a showerhead, be
sure that it delivers no more than 2.5 gallons per
minute; 1.5-2.0 gpm will save you even more. The



5



"feel" of the shower — misty, pounding, etc. —
varies widely with brand and model (some have
a needle-like spray that may drive you out of the
shower!). Some models have a fingertip valve so
you can reduce the flow while soaping up with-
out changing the temperature.

Your hardware or plumbing-supply store
should carry water-efficient showerheads, or you
can purchase them by mail. If you order a show-
erhead directly from a manufacturer, be sure to
contact the manufacturer first — prices and mod-
els change.

Installation is usually not difficult for a handy
individual. Unscrew your old showerhead with a
wrench, smear some pipe goop on the shower
arm threads (or use Teflon tape from your local
hardware or plumbing-supply store), and screw
the new showerhead into place. (Some shower-
heads have a rubber washer, which eliminates the
need for pipe goop or Teflon tape.) You may need
two wrenches — the second to prevent the shower
arm from twisting out of its fitting as you remove
the showerhead — and possibly penetrating oil or
some other lubricant to help release the threads.

After removing your old showerhead, you
may find that the shower arm ends in a ball rather
than in threads. If you can't unscrew the ball from
the arm, you will need to install an adapter from
your local hardware or plumbing-supply store
before installing the new showerhead. An alter-
native is to replace the shower arm with a thread-
ed arm from your local supplier — a $3-5 item.
Unscrew the arm from the wall and replace it
with a new one. Be sure to use pipe goop or
Teflon tape on the threads.

Leaky Toilets

Toilets that leak water from the tank into the
bowl waste 5% of all indoor residential water use.



6



That number is an estimated national average: if
you have a leaky toilet, it may be wasting up to
50% of your indoor water. It's worth fixing.
To check for a leak, lift the lid off the tank.




If water is flowing down the overflow tube, try bending the
float arm (which closes the ballcock) downwards. If the
water level is below the top of the overflow tube but still
runs into the bowl, the flapper valve is probably worn and
needs replacement.

Without disturbing the float or flapper valve, put
a few drops of dark food coloring in the tank and
wait a few minutes. If the colored water shows up
in the bowl, your toilet needs some work.

Take another look in the tank. If water is flow-
ing into the overflow tube, the ballcock (the float-
controlled valve that lets water into the tank) isn't
closing properly — it's either worn out or needs
adjustment. Try bending the float arm down. If
the ballcock still doesn't close before water runs
down the tube, it will need replacement.

If the ballcock isn't the problem, the flapper
valve is probably worn out. First check to make
sure there is no scale or grit preventing the flap-
per from closing properly. If the flapper is in fact



7



worn out, replace it with another from a local
supplier, or better yet, replace the toilet with an
efficient model.

Buying an Efficient Toilet

Unless your house was built in the past few
years under a 3.5-gallon-per-flush building code,
it most likely has a toilet which uses 5 or more
gallons per flush (gpf). If so, a 1.0-1.6 gpf toilet
can cut your indoor water use by 20-25%, with a
corresponding reduction in wastewater flow.
Even if you now use 3.5-gallon toilets, you can
expect a reduction of more than 15% in total
indoor water use if you switch to 1.0-gallon toi-
lets.

For the average household, switching to effi-
cient toilets will save approximately 15,000 gal-
lons of water — and $25 — annually. If you were to
replace three toilets at a cost of $100 each, the sav-
ings would translate into an 8.3% annual rate of
return — the toilets would pay for themselves in 8
1/2 years, and keep on saving year after year. If
you can't afford to replace all your toilets imme-
diately, start with the one that is used the most.
Your local utility may offer substantial rebates,
which would make these toilets an even better
buy.

For those with overflowing septic system prob-
lems, ultra-low-flush toilets may cure the prob-
lems for a lot less than the cost of improving the
septic system. A new home with efficient plumb-
ing fixtures may realize extra financial savings
from a smaller leachfield or lower sewage hook-
up fee. Check with your local building inspector.
In addition, you will reap the continuing financial
benefits which accrue through reduced water use.

If you're concerned that an ultra-low-flush toi-
let might not do its job properly, remember that
these toilets are specially designed to operate on



8



1.6 gallons or less. Conventional toilets modified
with displacement bags, dams, or bricks may
require double-flushing, but engineering studies
and our own years of experience show that many
1.0-1.6 gpf toilets work as well as or better than
their conventional counterparts. Rather than
sloshing lots of water around in the bowl for a
long time to little purpose, they use a forceful
pulse of water to complete each flush quickly and
cleanly.

Removal of old toilets and installation of new
ones is easier than it sounds. Before removing a
toilet, be sure to turn off the water supply to it
and flush all the water out of the cistern. Replace
the wax seal under the base of the toilet with a
new one. If you have any doubts about the job, a
plumber should be able to do it in a half hour or
less. When choosing a toilet, be sure it has the
same rough-in size (distance between the wall
and the center of the discharge pipe) as your cur-
rent toilet. This shouldn't be a major issue; most
U.S. toilets have a 12" rough-in.

Efficient Faucets Save A Lot

Inexpensive but efficient replacement faucets
can reduce your total indoor residential water use
by 3-5%. That may not sound like much, but your
energy savings through reduced hot-water use
will repay the cost of the faucet in less than a year.
In most cases, all that needs to be replaced is the
tip of the faucet.

Installation is usually very easy: just unscrew
your old faucet and replace it with an efficient
new one. If it's corroded and won't come out eas-
ily, a pair of pliers will help.

To determine the right size:

• Remove the existing faucet.

• If the threads are on the inside, it has
"female" threads. If the threads are on the



9




A water-efficient faucet will pay for itself in less than a year.



outside, they're "male."

• If a nickel fits snugly into the threaded end,
it's a "regular" faucet (15/16" male or
55/64" female threads).

• If a nickel doesn't fit into it but a dime does,
it's a "small" faucet (13/16" male or 3/4"
female threads).

• If your faucet is missing from the start, your
best bet is to choose a regular faucet with
dual (both male and female) threads: it will
probably fit.

A bathroom faucet which delivers 0.75-1.5 gal-
lons per minute (instead of the usual 2.0-4.0 gpm)
will work fine for toothbrushing, washing, or



10



shaving. You'll need a higher flow in the kitchen
sink to fill pots and pans: 2.0-2.5 gpm is general-
ly plenty. A shutoff lever in the faucet will allow
you to slow the flow temporarily without losing
the temperature setting — a convenient, water-
saving feature.

Efficient faucets are widely available through
hardware and plumbing-supply stores. Stores
>>>