Promote Water Conservation and Save Money with a High Efficiency Toilet

Most Americans don't realize it, but toilets use more water than any other appliance in the home. In fact, in an average American home the toilet accounts for around 30% of the total water consumption annually! A high efficiency toilet is a new wave of toilet that turns that stat on its head. By reducing the amount of water that is used per flush, these toilets can cut toilet water use in your home in half in one fowl swoop (or should we say flush?).

A Few Stats on Water Consumption
Over the past 50 years, water consumption in the United States has increased by 209 percent, with the average American using over 100 gallons per day, or 365,000 gallons of water per year. Just for perspective, translate that to drinking glasses and you're talking 584,000 glasses of water per person every year. Now consider that toilets account for 30% or more of that use, and you can see why installing a high efficiency toilet in your home can make a real difference.

Water Consumption and the High Efficiency Toilet (HET)
Let's take a moment and translate those numbers to toilet talk. Toilets made before 1980 used up to 5 gallons per flush. That was improved on in the years between 1980 and 1994 when 3.5 gallons became the industry standard. Compare that to the high efficiency models of today that use 1.3 gallons per flush or less, and you can see that the toilet industry is starting to get somewhere when it comes to saving water. By replacing a single 3.5 gallon per flush model toilet with a HET, your household will save almost 4,000 gallons of water per person every year. And if you've got an older toilet, or one that leaks or isn't functioning correctly, you'll be saving even more. In fact, if every household in America replaced one toilet in their home with a HET model, the nation would save a staggering 900 billion gallons of water annually.

What a High Efficiency Toilet Means for your Pocketbook
We've established that an HET saves water. You're probably wondering what kind of savings that translates to in dollars and cents. From a household perspective, a HET can save you in the neighborhood of $90 per year in water bills, and up to $2000 over the lifetime of the toilet. That means your new HET will pay for itself many times over before it wears itself out. And from a larger perspective, don't forget how much money it takes to supply the demand toilets place on the water supply. From water supplies to purification plants to waste water treatment, literally billions of tax dollars are spent every year on the water that goes in and comes out of America's toilets.

Talk to your Municipal Water Supplier about your High Efficiency Toilet
Because these fixtures do save so much water, many municipal water suppliers offer rebates and discounts (usually in the $25 to $175 range) for homeowners who replace old toilets with HET models; yet another advantage of choosing a HET for your home. Whether you're in the market for a new toilet, looking to replace an older, inefficient model, or are simply concerned about reducing your water consumption, you should talk to a toilet retailer or a plumber about purchasing and installing a high efficiency toilet in your home.