Real World Water Savings…
Too many times you hear the propoganda touting the energy or water efficiency of new products, and all you have to go on is the savings provided to you by the manufacturer. And of course, they are ALWAYS espousing the benefits and savings you as the consumer are bound to get. Many times you’re let down, and this leads to cynicism and mistrust across the board.
Well, I’m happy to report on some real world water savings that I was able to witness with my own eyes. The American Standard water efficiency project ended up being just as successful as I’d hoped going in. Two communities were retrofitted with new ultra-low flow, Watersense labeled toilets, faucets and showerheads. Serenbe, located south of Atlanta, is a relatively new community in the past 10 years. Chaistain Lakes is a well established community on Atlanta’s north side. Roughly 10 homes in each neighborhood were retrofitted and monitored to measure true water savings.
The results? Both communities saw a great reduction in overall water consumption.
During the 5 month study period, the results were as follows:
Serenbe saw an average reduction of 27%. 95% of participants were between 10-36%, with some homes cutting down on water use by nearly 50%
Chaistain Lakes had an average reduction of 18%. 95% of participants were between 4-32%. The highest reduction was of 52%.
It’s odd that the newer homes showed a much better improvement than the older homes, but there are still a number of variables that couldn’t be accounted for, such as if they just happened to take lots of baths or do more loads of laundry during the sample period. We survey to account for habits, but we can only hold so many variables constant.
So…in the end, there was an average reduction of 18-27% in total home water use, with some homes seeing as much as a 50% reduction. And that is just from following the simple three step process – switching out the toilets, faucets and showerheads with ultra low flow versions.
More data to come as we continue to track water use across these homes to get at least a year’s worth of data.
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