Green my Rowhome

There are a handful of ways to deal with water. You can ignore it and be wasteful, you can make it a real priority and be a true eco-achiever, or be like us – somewhere in the middle.

What are we doing to save water?

• Install low-flow aerators in our bathroom faucet(s)
• Install low-flow shower head
• Install dual flush toilets and retrofit existing toilets to be dual flush

These measures will signficantly reduce our indoor water consumption, they cost us next to nothing, and they were easy to install. In my opinion, every household in America should take these steps. This includes you and your gorgeous row house too!

Low-Flow Showerheads and Aerators

For our single existing bathroom, we bought a low-flow showerhead with an adjustable flow rate, which allows us to use exactly as much water as we need. More for rinsing, less for lathering. It’s a solid showerhead called Oxygenic 60120, which cost $20 on amazon.com. It works great, and we’re happy with it. The only problem is that because it’s a variable flow, for getting LEED Homes points, LEED looks at the highest flow rate, which in this case I believe is 2.00 gpm for the showerhead, so we would earn 1 point. If it was less than 1.75 gpm, we would earn the maximum 2 points in the WE fixtures section (if all the showers in our house used this product).

Next time, Andrea is going to buy the shower head.

Installing faucet aerators are another inexpensive and effective way to lower water usage, water heating costs, and earn points towards LEED Homes certification. We purchased a 0.5 gpm aerator, and a 1.0 gpm aerator for our bathroom. (Washington DC’s code requires the use of bathroom faucets of 1.50 gpm or less, which would earn the maximum 2 WE points for LEED). The 0.5 gpm aerator felt like hot breath. The 1.0 gpm aerator is working perfect, we can’t even tell it’s using less water, since the aerator increases the water pressure to make it feel like more water is coming out. I think we picked it up at Home Depot for $4. Again, another no brainer.

Dual Flush Toilets

Since we aren’t at the stage of installing toilets, and we don’t want to replace the 2003 Kohler that is in our current bathroom, we picked up a Hydroright Two Flush Retrofit Kit, per my brother’s recommendation, from Ace Hardware for $25.  I consider using the Two Flush Kit, but it wasn’t compatible with my toilet. These devices replace the flush valve and handle, converting regular toilets into dual flush models! LEED Homes rewards dual flush toilets with 1 point (if all toilets in the house are dual flush or high-performance), or 2 points if the average toilet uses less than 1.10 gpf.

The Hydroright claims to install in 10 minutes without tools. I think it took me 20. If I had to do it again, I could do it in 10. After a few days of use, the full flush is working fine. Fine tuning on the partial flush is still required. We currently have to hold the button down for a full second for it to work, which bothers me. So the verdict is still out.  Next time, I’d also install it in the summertime, since the cold water in the toilet tank made my hands go numb within minutes.

Update: After 5 months of use, I don’t love it. It’s better than not having it, but no substitute for a real dual flush toilet. The problem is that for the small flush, you have to hold the button for 1 or 2 seconds, depending on how big of a flush you want. I’m not a fan of that.