In the Bathroom

Water conservation is important in the bathroom. The bathroom accounts for 75 percent of your usage inside the home. Each toilet flush uses up to five gallons.

Steps include identifying leaky toilets by putting food coloring in your toilet tank. If the color shows up in the bowl without the toilet being flushed, you have a leak to repair. A drip or a leak can waste hundreds of gallons per day.

When remodeling your bathroom or building a new house, consider some of the new toilets available:

conventional U.S. toilets use five gallons per flush
common low flush toilets use three and one half gallons per flush
ultra low volume toilets use one and one half gallons per flush
the air-assisted toilets uses one half gallon per flush (a potential savings of 90 percent).

Or consider installing a demand type hot water system such as the Chilipepper appliance, an effective measure that actually adds convenience to your kitchen or bathroom. The Chilipepper even adds convenience to your life, and conserves energy as well as water. It can have a payback from these savings of as little as 6 months.

You could save up to 27 percent more by taking showers instead of baths (if the shower discharge is less than three gallons per minute the duration is less than eight minutes). Test your shower consumption by plugging the bathtub drain during your shower. When finished, compare the level to your typical bath level.

To save even more, turn the shower on to get wet, turn the shower off while you lather up, then turn it back on to rinse. (This is known as a Navy shower since water is so scarce on navy ships.) Combine several activities in the shower: wash your hair, shave, and belt out your favorite song!

When you are brushing your teeth, shaving, or washing you face, turn off the faucet while you do so. This could save between 10 and 20 gallons per person every day.

Increase your savings further by installing low-flow shower heads, toilet dams, or other devices designed to reduce the amount used in a toilet, shower or sink. After installing a low flow shower head or sink fixture you will find that it takes longer than before you installed it, so you might want to again consider using a Chilipepper appliance to reduce your waiting time.

By installing a Chilipepper appliance you can reduce the wait, and save even more.

Make sure the thermostat isn't set too high. High settings waste energy .

Chilipepper Sales 10 Greg St., # 110 Sparks Nevada, 89431 775-359-1223