One of the biggest trends in modern home design is eco-friendly choices. By making a few simple selections, you can protect the environment while saving money on your utility bills. One of the easiest ways to make your home more environmentally conscious is to invest in low-flow fixtures. These plumbing devices help to reduce the amount of water you use during everyday tasks like taking a shower or flushing the toilet.
What Are Low-Flow Fixtures?
A low-flow fixture is a type of household appliance designed to use as little water as possible. There are all sorts of low-flow fixtures, including sink faucets, showerheads, and toilets. Most plumbing fixtures that dispense water come in a low-flow fixture option. Technically, anything that uses less water than a traditional fixture can count as low flow.
However, there are some legal requirements these fixtures must meet if they want to market themselves as low flow. Initially, these rules were set by the Energy Policy Act of 1992. There have been some slight changes over the years. However, the typical measurements to qualify as a low-flow fixture include:
- Bathroom faucets: Flow rate of 1.5 gallons per minute (GPM) or less
- Kitchen faucets: Flow rate of 2.2 GPM or less
- Toilets: Flow rate of 1.5 gallons of water per flush (GPF) or less
- Showerheads: Flow rate of 2 GPM or less
How Do Low-Flow Fixtures Work?
The idea of drastically cutting the amount of water that a fixture uses might sound counterintuitive. Many people assume low-flow fixtures provide a trickle of water coming out of them, and you’ll just end up using more water to accomplish what you’re doing. However, modern low-flow fixtures are very different from the old ones that often required you to flush your toilet multiple times or spend ages washing your hands.
Low-flow faucets and showerheads now include helpful devices called aerators. These force small amounts of air into your water stream. While the tiny bubbles are indistinguishable for the most part, they make your water stream feel heavier and fuller without using as much water. Many designs also use smaller holes in the water dispenser. When water is forced through these small holes, it increases pressure without requiring you to use as much water.
Low-flow toilet designs are even more complex. They often have a modified drain shape that lets waste flow away without needing as much force. Some models also have differently shaped jets. Instead of pulling waste down like other toilets did, these modern toilets use pressure to push waste away while using less water.
Ways Low-Flow Fixtures Help the Environment
Simply put, low-flow fixtures protect the environment by reducing water usage. How does this choice impact the environment? Here are several concrete ways that lowering your household water usage is great for the earth.
Conserve Freshwater Resources
One of the most important benefits of low-flow fixtures is their ability to protect our lakes, rivers, and other freshwater resources. The average household uses around 300 gallons of water per day. While some of this water may come from reclaimed sources, most municipal water comes from freshwater sources. These freshwater sources are not infinite. Many cities end up taking more water from the environment than they return. Ultimately, this can end up destroying precious natural habitats and drastically altering the environment. By reducing the amount of water you use each day, low-flow fixtures leave more water for birds, fish, and other inhabitants of our world.
Use Less Energy Processing Water
Another thing to consider is the fact that the water coming from your faucets doesn’t come straight from a river. Before it can be used by humans, water typically needs to be processed. This can include industrial treatments like filtering the water or adding chemicals to it to remove microbes. It also involves individual water treatments, like heating your water at home before you shower in it. All this processing uses a vast amount of electricity or other forms of energy. Roughly 4% of the nation’s electricity is used to process water. By reducing water usage at home, you also lower your energy usage.
Reduce Toxic Byproducts From Wastewater
Lowering the amount of water that comes from your fixtures also results in lower amounts of wastewater coming from your home. Though we don’t often think about what happens to water once it goes down a drain, it still has a big impact on the water cycle. When water becomes sewage, it results in some additional environmental concerns. Removing waste products to create water that is clean enough to reenter the water cycle can take some time and effort. Certain cleaning products used for processing sewage can end up contaminating groundwater and causing some additional issues. Fortunately, low-flow fixtures reduce the amount of water that requires treatment, so they can also cut back on some types of pollution.
Lower Your Overall Carbon Footprint
If you’re looking for ways to reduce your carbon footprint, low-flow fixtures are an excellent choice. The entire process of getting water from the environment, transporting it to your house, and eventually returning it to the wild consumes a lot of energy and materials. On average, every cubic meter of water that you use generates roughly 23 pounds of carbon emissions. Things like getting water from one part of town to another or warming up your water all result in carbon products that contribute to greenhouse gases. Every bit of water you can conserve cuts back your carbon footprint. Estimates suggest that, if everyone used low-flow fixtures, carbon emissions could be reduced by up to 1.5 gigatons.
Is Low-Flow Fixture Installation Worth It?
As you can see, low-flow fixtures have a lot of advantages. Does this mean you should install them in your home? For most homeowners, deciding on their fixture type will require them to weigh the pros and cons. The most important thing to know is that low-flow fixtures make a huge difference. If everyone installed them, cities could reduce their water usage by up to 30%. This could result in saving hundreds of thousands of gallons of usable water.
Furthermore, there is little downside to making the switch. Modern low-flow fixtures are almost indistinguishable from traditional ones. Thanks to technological upgrades, you won’t notice any problems like low pressure or poor flushing. These fixtures are often very affordable and very straightforward to replace. Depending on the product you select, you can often switch to low-flow fixtures in a single afternoon with the help of a professional from our team.
Fixtures with low flow help the environment and save you money while being very simple to install. If you’d like help adding low-flow fixtures to your house, Pacific Plumbing & Rooter Inc is happy to assist you. Our team can help with a variety of installations, ranging from simple showerhead changes to complex toilet upgrades. We also provide plenty of other plumbing services throughout the Eugene, OR, area, including pipe repair. To schedule your next service visit or request an estimate, contact Pacific Plumbing & Rooter Inc today.
