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February 5, 2009
Still Dueling Over Dual Flush Toilets
Q: Hi Ed, I just read your column on dual flush toilets, where the toilet has 2 buttons. One button for a full flush at 1.6 gallons and one for a half flush at .8 of a gallon, and it will net out at 1.3 gallons per flush. You also said about half of American households are still using toilets that flush with over 1.6 gallons per flush and switching form an old water-guzzling toilet to a high-efficiency toilet could save six to ten thousand gallons of water a year!
Ed, I'm a big fan, but this is where we disagree. Whether a 1.3 GPF toilet is capable of saving six to ten thousand gallons of water per year versus a 1.6 GPF toilet, I'm not sure. By my math, that's assuming about 55 flushes per day. My family of four is probably good for about 20 flushes a day. Are your math figures off or are my math skills slipping?
-Jason (California)
A: Thanks Jason. I've received a flood of well written letters just like yours asking about the math used to figure out how much water can be saved with a dual flush toilet. It seems that there is a little confusion as to the correct figures needed for the equation, so I'll be happy to go into more details.
Newer water-saving toilets by today's standards use 1.6 GPF, and HETs (High Efficiency Toilets) use 1.3 GPF or less. However, old water-guzzling toilets use "over" 1.6 GPF, and that can be anywhere from about 2.5 to 3.5 GPF. The key phrase that many of my readers missed, and you yourself used in your question is "over 1.6 GPF" and there is the math issue.
If you use 1.6 as your top-end figure, the math will be off. But, if you use a figure "over" 1.6, the math should make sense. For instance, the water saved per flush from a 2.5 toilet versus a 1.3 toilet equals 1.2 gallons per flush. At your figure of 20 flushes a day you may save 24 gallons a day, times 365 equals 8,760 gallons of water per year.
I hope we didn't bore anyone with all these math figures, but we need to point out the amount of water that can be saved by upgrading to new high-efficiency toilets. Please, everyone out there, look past the math and see that we all need to start conserving water, and getting rid of your old water-guzzling toilet should make you "flush with pride!"
Ed Del Grande, the author of Ed Del Grande's House Call, was born and raised in a family-owned plumbing business. With more than 25 years of experience in every aspect of construction, he holds current Master licenses in pipefitting, fire protection and plumbing. If you have a question for Ed, send him an e-mail at eddelgrande@hgtvpro.com.Posted by Ed Del Grande at February 5, 2009 1:53 PM
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