Benefits of Installing Low-Flow Fixtures in Your Home

Several benefits come with the installation of low-flow fixtures. First and foremost, they cut down on the amount of water we send down the drain, but they do so in ways that don't compromise the "user experience." Reduced flow rates don’t mean more time spent in the bathroom, actually. The low-flow toilet still gets it done, and if you don’t happen to have an old-timey water-hogging fixture that uses 3.5 gallons or more per flush to compare it with, you may never know the difference between 1.2 gallons and a normal amount of water that's gone with the spray to your behind.

There are multiple benefits to low-flow fixtures. They conserve water—an essential, limited natural resource. Not only does that help save money, it also helps keep our water bills low. And because conserving water equals conserving energy (since it takes a lot of energy to heat the water we use), low-flow fixtures are energy savers too. When you add it all up, that's a lot of conserved resources, and the reduced use of those means at least one thing: a lessened and lightened environmental impact of our homes.

Low-flow faucets can save a lot of money, can cut water use by 30 to 50 percent compared to standard faucets. This dropped water usage has the potential to save you $50 to $100 a year on your household water bills. And because you use less hot water with a low-flow faucet, you also potentially save on your energy bill.

Water can be saved by using low-flow fixtures, which often cut water usage by 30 to 50 percent compared to standard fixtures. Take showerheads, for instance. A typical showerhead uses 2.5 gallons of water per minute. A low-flow showerhead, on the other hand, might use only 1.5 gallons per minute, which means it saves water compared to a standard fixture. The same situation applies to toilets. A low-flow toilet uses only 1.28 gallons per flush, whereas older toilet models used anywhere from 3.5 to 7 gallons per flush. Counting both toilets and showerheads, we save a lot of water in the average household.

Faucets that use less water save energy. They save it because they use less hot water, and heating water is one of the top demands on our energy resources. If you take a standard faucet and you put it side by side with a low-flow faucet and you have the same person use each one to wash their hands, you will use significantly less hot water with the low-flow version (plus, it's not like your hands are going to get any less clean, from what I can tell).

There are multiple advantages to using flow restrictors. They are beneficial because they help in conserving water. By lowering the flow rate, entire households might save hundreds of gallons of water. This, in turn, can lead to not just direct savings on water bills but also indirect savings on energy costs. Heating water in a tank or heating it on-demand in a shower setup uses up a lot of electricity or gas. Using a flow restrictor means less water is flowing out and more water is flowing back in to the heater. Thus, you are using less energy to heat water, and that is a good thing.

Faucets that are low flow are engineered to use much less water than their standard brethren. They do not rely solely on the end user to conserve—that is, they do not rely purely on the virtue of turning the faucet off when one is engaged in a task that requires only a limited amount of water. Instead, low flow faucets limit the flow of water through various means, including using aerators or flow restrictors, and they do so while still maintaining enough pressure to make using the faucet a non-frustrating experience.

The above passage can be paraphrased as follows without changing the meaning. Certainly, an energy-wasting hot water faucet is a dripping faucet. When a faucet leaks hot water, it leads to an astonishing waste of energy. Why? Because you have a water heater that is working tirelessly to keep the water at a constantly hot and ready-to-use state, even though the water in question is in no way about to be used. Leaks are one way, and there are many, by which we can waste an enormous amount of energy. Is that a good thing? No. Should we try to reduce that? Yes. And it's feasible.

Saving water is effortless when using low-flow faucets. They are easy to install, and they can save the average person about 30% to 50% of the water used when compared to traditional models. While standard faucets push out 2.2 gallons per minute (gpm), low-flow fixtures pump out a figure between 1.0 gpm and 1.5 gpm. Over the course of a year, the reduction in flow from low-flow models—when using the same amount of water needed for daily tasks—adds up to significant savings.

Faucets that are both reliable and efficient are what most plumbers seem to favor, and those often are low-flow faucets. They are designed to sonserve without sacrificing performance. They do well what faucets are supposed to do: that is, if you turn one on, the water should flow, and if you turn it off, the water should not flow. They are well-constructed, from reputable brands, and with good warranties—the sorts of faucets that decrease the likelihood of leaks and the kinds of repairs that seem to call a plumber back to a job site all too often.