Eco-friendly Plumbing Littleton

Eco-friendly plumbing describes the plumbing practices and technologies that are kind to the Earth. They conserve our most precious resource: water. They use less energy and don't rely on environmentally harmful materials. When eco-friendly plumbing is installed in a home, the whole house "plumbs" in an eco-friendly way. Fixtures, hot water systems, and appliances all conserve water, use less energy, and aren't made from toxic materials that might leach into our groundwater and from there into our drinking water. When we eco-friendly plumb a house, its plumbing system and all the plumbing "appliances" in it are set up to conserve and divert water harmlessly.

Envirowater is the eco-friendly approach to plumbing. It means doing everything possible in a bathroom or kitchen to save water, energy, and everything else that your eco-friendly plumbing system can save. To that end, eco plumbing tries to accomplish two quite simple but very impactful things. First, it prevents wastewater from going to places it shouldn't and allows it to go to the plants and earth where it's most useful and where it can save the most resources. Second, it makes sure that the system that's doing all of this is using as little energy as possible.

Sustainable plumbing has many benefits, and the first of these is conserving water. The systems that overly rely on gravity often suffer from slow drainage and back pressure. Because of this, they don't handle wastewater very well. When we use modern plumbing systems that are gravity-fed and not pressure-regulated, we can inadvertently use 20% more water every time we flush a toilet. Unbelievably, if you have a plumbing system that is 40 years old, it is more efficient at conserving water than the modern ones that are installed today. Then maybe the systems themselves are not as pressure-efficient and surely not as pressure-regulated as the cisterns.

Green plumbing pipe is commonly known as PEX, which stands for cross-linked polyethylene. PEX is considered environmentally friendly for several reasons. Its production does not require the chopping down of trees, as happens in the making of PVC. And PEX has a long life and a virtually trouble-free one, to boot, so it doesn’t need to be replaced long enough that the resources used to make it might as well might have been used in any other kind of plumbing.

Water pipes made of copper develop a green color due to the natural process of oxidation. Over time, copper exposed to air and moisture reacts with both elements to form copper carbonate hydroxide, which is more commonly known as patina. This layer that you see on pipes serves as a protective covering that keeps the pipe looking decent and functioning well, to the same effect as if the appearance weren't altered in any way. Pipes with oxidation look weird but in no way are they weird; they're just continuing to do their job for you.

The piping option that is typically the most environmentally friendly for plumbing in Littleton is cross-linked polyethylene, known as PEX. This flexible, durable, and easy-to-install plastic makes an excellent, inexpensive substitute for the pipe types used in prior decades. With its close to 50-year lifespan, resistance to leaks, and corrosion, PEX not only saves the consumer from paying to replace pipes with more recycled materials (as in the case of copper) than PEX is supposedly made with, but it also saves an insurmountable amount of water from being wasted over that period. Still, plumbing experts recommend not using PEX in spaces like saunas where it would be exposed to excessive amounts of heat, which could cause it to warp.

Choosing to use green sewer pipe in Littleton allows the city's eco-friendly plumbing practices to align even more closely with the goals of the state's very low-impact Denver basin. Green sewer pipes are typically made from recycled or sustainable materials. Green sewer pipes also improve water efficiency and reduce the risk of leaks and the pollution that can come with them. Additionally, green sewer pipes can last longer, which means that they can reduce the need for frequent replacement, which is a big source of "green" waste. So green sewer pipes in Littleton are a big step towards very sustainable infrastructure.

The plumbing pipes that are often considered eco-friendly are made from a material called cross-linked polyethylene, or PEX.

Typically, copper piping is the healthiest. It is durable, recyclable, and has natural antimicrobial properties, making it an excellent and eco-friendly alternative to the more common plumbing materials. Copper is "sturdy" plumbing. That means fewer fittings and joints, which in turn means fewer potential leak points. Unlike some of the materials we might commonly associate with plumbing, copper is eco-friendly, non-toxic, and almost as safe as PEX, which is a close second to copper in being a safe alternative to the more common plumbing materials. PEX, which stands for cross-linked polyethylene, has been around for almost 50 years and offers not only flexibility but also ease of installation and "a natural resistance to scale and chlorine."

Cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) is often preferred over copper for eco-friendly plumbing. This is due to several reasons. One, production of PEX is generally less energy-intensive than that of copper, so it's more sustainable. Two, PEX is far more flexible, so it requires fewer fittings and connectors, which means it has fewer potential leak points and uses fewer materials overall. Three, PEX is highly resistant to scale and chlorine, so it’s far more durable. And four, PEX has better insulative properties—hot water lines lose less heat when they’re made out of PEX compared to when they’re made out of copper—which makes for more energy-efficient plumbing. Lastly, PEX is recyclable, which is just another reason why it’s a more environmentally friendly choice compared to copper.