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Going above and beyond the water requirements of first-generation low-flow toilets, high-efficiency toilets (HETs) use no more than one gallon to flush down your waste.

Federal law currently prohibits selling a new toilet that uses more than 1.6 gallons per flush (gpf). You can achieve significant water and energy savings by replacing an older model toilet (which typically requires about three times that amount of water) with a federally mandated "low-flow" model. But you'll save even more at by investing in a HET.

Find it! High-efficiency toilets

Finding a highly-functional high-efficiency toilet is becoming much easier, thanks to many testing standards now in place. First, take a look at the Maximum Performance (MaP) Testing Report which reviews 720 different toilet models.

You can also check out Terry Love's Consumer toilet reports to see reviews of the newest high-efficiency toilet models. Because he tests many of the models in his own home, ratings are often based on first-hand knowledge and real-life experience.

Another guarantee of water conservation is the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) WaterSense label. These models have been evaluated by a third-party and meet higher performance and efficiency standards.[1] The EPA also lists retailers and distributors of WaterSense-certified high-efficiency toilets on its partners site.

Installing a high-efficiency toilet helps you go green because...

• You'll save water.
• You'll save energy.

Toilets account for about 30 percent of indoor household water usage. In fact, one individual might flush a toilet up to 140,000 times over the course of his/her lifetime![1] Older toilets installed between 1980 and 1994 flush about 3.5 gpf, while toilets installed before then can require about 5 gpf. Replacing an old model with a HET, conserves about 4,000 gallons of water per year. Additionally, over the life of the toilet, water-bill savings could average about $2,000 (in residential homes), or $90 per year.[1]

Commercial, residential, and educational buildings also use a significant portion of water in the US—they consume approximately 20 percent of the total water drawn from fresh sources every day. Reducing this amount by a mere 10 percent would save over 2 trillion gallons of fresh water annually.[2]

When water is saved, so too is energy. If just one percent of American households replaced an older toilet with a HET, the nation would save more than 38 million kilotwatt-hours (kWh) of electricity. That's enough to power more than 43,000 households for one month.[3]

In October 2007, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law requiring the use of more high-efficiency toilets in new construction projects in California. The bill is the first of its kind in the country, and is projected to save 8 billion gallons of water by the tenth year of implementation. Beginning in 2010, 50 percent of all toilets sold in the state must be a HET, a number that will increase until 2014 when 100 percent of new toilet models installed must be HETs.

Controversies

In 1995, the federal government passed the National Energy Policy Act (H.R. 776), requiring all toilets sold in the US to be "low-flow" toilets, which use no more than 1.6 gpf. The change in policy precipitated concerns about whether there was enough water to move waste through building pipelines and municipal waterways. However, there is actually no evidence that the original low-flow toilets caused any problems. The same concerns arose when new high-efficiency toilets were introduced. As a result, a collaboration of water utilities sponsored a full laboratory study to draw concrete conclusions. The study, completed in 2004, concluded that flushing with as little as 1 gallon of water is enough to move waste from the bowl to the sewer in residential and commercial situations.

External links

• The Star - Thinking Outside the Bowl: High-efficiency toilets are the way to go, says engineer Bill Gauley
• ContractorMag.com - Schwartzenegger Makes High-Efficiency Toilets the Law in California
• ContractorMag.com - Manufacturers Push 1.28-gpf Toilet Law