Efficient plumbing fixtures

Efficient plumbing fixtures in your Scottsdale home or commercial building

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With energy prices in the headlines lately, it’s all too easy to lose sight of a completely separate way for home owners and facilities managers to conserve resources and money: more efficient plumbing fixtures. For a long time potable water was considered almost too cheap to meter, or at least too cheap to investigate. Low utility rates for water supply and disposal did little to discourage wasteful water practices and technologies until the past 10-15 years efficient plumbing fixtures has changed dramatically. In response to rising rates in some jurisdictions, demand started growing for efficient plumbing fixtures that did the same jobs with less water. Manufacturers responded to this demand, and many modern fixtures are truly high-performance: they deliver great service with much lower water use, and state of the art efficient plumbing fixtures for some applications use no water at all!

If your home or commercial building still has old (1990 or earlier) plumbing fixtures, you need to investigate retrofitting them with new efficient plumbing fixtures . Depending on your local water rates, payback times may be quite rapid.

Water Efficient Plumbing Fixtures Have Changed

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In most homes and commercial buildings efficient plumbing fixtures provide essential services to occupants that themselves cannot be reduced: bathing, hand washing, and sewage conveyance. In all of these applications the water consumption depends on two basic variables: usage patterns and consumption per use. Usage patterns are largely a matter of personal preference, and building management can do little to change them. For the most part, lowering your water use in efficient plumbing fixtures means improving your fixture technology to lower the consumption per use. For flow-type fixtures this means lowering the gallons per minute (GPM), and for flush-type fixtures, lowering the gallons per flush (GPF).  Efficient plumbing fixtures give you water efficiency: getting the same or better service for less water by using better technology.

Simple, Reliable, Solutions to save you money.

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Retrofitting to efficient plumbing fixtures in homes and in commercial buildings – faucet aerators and shower heads – may be the easiest Efficient plumbing fixtures to install. Water-saving steps you can take in an existing home or commercial building: it’s as simple as unscrewing the old and screwing on the new, no change in valve required! And if this is not something you feel you can handle yourself, Your local plumber in Scottsdale will be happy to assist you in saving money and water. Since the federal EPA regulations of 1992 went into effect the conventional flow rate for both of these  fixtures is 2.5 GPM. Super-efficient plumbing fixtures can use as low as 0.5 GPM (faucets) and 1.5 GPM (shower heads) at full flow. The best new shower heads also allow you to control water flow rate separately from flow temperature via a separate shut-off valve near the shower head. With these Efficient plumbing fixtures they allows water-conscious users to reduce water flow during soaping and scrubbing and use full flow only for rinsing, all without changing the flow temperature. A surprising number of users, once informed of this capability, will adopt this water-saving practice and adapt to the new efficient plumbing fixtures.

Retrofitting these flow-type efficient plumbing fixtures is almost a no-brainer for any home or commercial building owner. Although some users may complain initially because of different spray patterns, especially on shower heads, they eventually adjust. At the very least, try out the new Efficient plumbing fixtures in part of your home or commercial building as an experiment. Consider tamper-resistant Efficient plumbing fixtures if suitable for your application. Finally, since efficient plumbing fixtures flow use both hot and cold water, don’t forget to include the energy savings from reduced hot water consumption in your payback analysis.

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Efficient plumbing fixtures that flush take a bit more work to retrofit but can save serious amounts of water and money. Fairly recently typical toilets used 3-5 gallons of water per flush and typical urinals used 2-3 gallons per flush. Early low-flush models from some manufacturers sacrificed performance to save water, which led to double-flushing, negating much of the potential savings, in turn causing a bad reputation in the industry for Efficient plumbing fixtures for some time. But those days are long gone. Since the appearance of lower flow standards in EPA act 1992, the technologies improved drastically and now most EPA-compliant fixtures perform quite well. Conventional toilets now use 1.6 GPF, and conventional urinals use 1.0 GPF, far less than fixtures still in many homes and existing buildings.

But don’t stop your flush analysis there. If you’ve decide to do a flush-fixture retrofit, or if the payback attractiveness looks only borderline, take a look at super-efficient toilets and urinals that beat the federal standard. A modern low-flow urinal uses only 0.5 GPF, and a low-flow toilet uses 1.1 GPF. Some new toilets are dual-flush models that use 0.8 GPF for liquid waste and 1.1 – 1.6 GPF for solid waste. These units will make your home or building even greener, and depending on pricing, may shorten your payback time as well.

Flush fixture retrofits tend to be direct bolt-on replacements, much like flow fixtures, just requiring more labor per fixture and once again you can seek the assistance of a plumber in Phoenix if your not sure about trying this yourself. . One note of caution: when shopping for new plumbing fixtures, be sure to compare GPM or GPF at the same operating water pressure. Also keep in mind that actual performance and flow in your building will vary if your water pressure is different than the pressure used to rate the new efficient plumbing fixtures.

Cutting-edge Approaches for efficient plumbing fixtures

Market-leading “flush” fixtures actually use no water at all because you don’t flush them! Non-water urinals are a recent development, and work by using a specialized cartridge in the drain that allows waste fluid through while preventing odors from entering the bathroom. They require no water supply and use standard sewage piping. The replaceable cartridges are good for a few thousand uses each, and this routine replacement cost must be included in the payback analysis, keeping in mind that it replaces routine maintenance/replacement on a conventional urinal’s flush valve. Cleaning practices are also different than water-using urinals, so some staff retraining may be necessary.

Composting toilets have been around for decades but have low market penetration because they’re so different from standard plumbing practice and they call up an image of the old-fashioned outhouse, with the attendant sanitary concerns. Modern systems are physically attractive and essentially odor-free, and well-designed systems provide easily-accessible compost and effective pest control. The downside is that they can’t use your existing sewage plumbing: dedicated waste infrastructure is required. This means they must be consciously designed into new buildings and are only suitable for existing buildings if you’re doing a significant renovation.

Saving Money And Water By Installing Efficient Plumbing Fixtures In Your Scottsdale Home or Commercial Building Is EASY.

Installing water-efficient plumbing fixtures is a great way to green your home or commercial building and improve your bottom line. The technology is reliable, affordable, and off-the-shelf, making it a low-risk investment that offers good financial returns.

Call Today For Your Plumber In Scottsdale to Assist you in saving $$$ TODAY.

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