May 12 2008
The most inefficient appliance in the home is also the one that uses the most water. In most toilets, as much as 1 1/4 gallons per flush can be wasted due to an imbalance between the toilet tank and bowl levels. If there's a leak, another 200 gallons of water per day could be wasted.
That's a lot of wasted water, especially at a time when many areas in the U.S. are suffering from drought conditions or are in danger of experiencing water shortages within the next 10 years. The good news is you can limit water waste by simply installing a fill valve, like the HydroClean, http://www.gomjsi.com.
"As a plumber I saw how inefficient toilets are and I wanted to fix that," says Michael Schuster, inventor of the HydroClean toilet fill valve.
Most fill valves deliver too much water to the bowl. That ripple you see, says Schuster, is the excess water being sent down the drain. The HydroClean adjusts the amount of water directed to the bowl, which he says prevents thousands of gallons from being wasted every year.
An independent study conducted by water efficiency expert Bill Gauley, P.E., Veritec Consulting and contributor to the EPA's WaterSense Program, found that installation of the HydroClean reduced water usage by 36% in a 159-unit condominium building. The 6,340 gallons daily savings is enough water to fill the average home swimming pool every three days.
"We chose the HydroClean over a municipal toilet rebate program because it looked easier and less expensive, and it was. That's a payback of less than four months. Phenomenal!" says Fred Harrison of Halton Property Management, whose water and sewer bill dropped $1,250 a month as a result of installing the valve in 318 toilets.
Schuster says the waste that Harrison saw is common in most toilets, even low-flow toilets he's seen, which is why he invented a simple and inexpensive way to fix the problem.
The valve also detects leaks providing an audible signal when a leak is detected. Indeed, the EPA estimates 20 percent of all toilets leak.