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Environmentally Friendly Plumbing Systems Can Save You Money |
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American homes consume about 100 gallons of water a day -that's almost 70% more than homes of other industrialized countries. Residential water use makes up 47 percent of the water supplied by U.S. water utilities. We can each become more environmentally friendly, and our plumbing systems are a good place to start. There are lots of ways you can save money and the environment if you just take the time, including some well-known and not-so-well-known ways.
by BrianLeMaire
American homes consume about 100 gallons of water a day -that's almost 70% more than homes of other industrialized countries. Residential water use makes up 47 percent of the water supplied by U.S. water utilities. We can each become more environmentally friendly, and our plumbing systems are a good place to start. There are lots of ways you can save money and the environment if you just take the time, including some well-known and not-so-well-known ways.
You can use a water filtering system in your home to purify enough water to fill more than three-thousand disposable plastic water bottles every year. You would save money by not paying the store mark up on bottled water (and you would know for sure where the water was coming from). A by-product of crude oil is used to produce disposable water bottles, every year more than sixteen million barrels of oil are used in the creation of all of the bottles used in the U.S. By reducing the number of bottles we throw away, we reduce our dependence on crude oil.
Greywater or graywater systems collect and filter the water used by faucets, dishwashers, and washing machines. But instead of that water going down the drain, it's reused for non-drinking water purposes like watering your plants. This kind of recycling also keeps your soil well irrigated by diverting water into it instead of into your local sewage system.
The cheapest, easiest, and most effective modifications to your plumbing system are low-flow additions such as shower heads, toilets, and faucet aerators. These can reduce your home water consumption by up to fifty-percent. Not only that, but what you may not realize is that by reducing your water consumption, you automatically reduce the amount of water that you heat -cutting the energy your hot water heater uses by up to fifty-percent.
When leaky pipes can't be repaired because of too many pinhole leaks or another systemic problem, what can you do? Traditionally the solution has been to replace your plumbing system -to repipe, but that means cutting walls open and tearing out pipes. So not only are you throwing away the old pipes and the drywall that had to be removed to get at them, but then you need to replace them with new pipes and drywall. Manufacturing these new materials has an environmental impact.
Leaky pipes: What happens when your leaky pipes are so full of pinhole leaks or can't be repaired and need to be replaced? A repipe, or pipe replacement, involves cutting open walls and removal of the affected pipes. Not only does this mean you're throwing away drywall and old pipes, but you're using new drywall and pipes, each with its own manufacturing toll on the environment.
CuraFlo's epoxy pipe lining is a "green", or environmentally friendly alternative to repipe. It involves less mess and takes less time than pipe replacement. More often than not epoxy lining is more cost-effective too. Your pipes are epoxy lined through connections to your existing plumbing fixtures and valves, nearly or completely eliminating the need to cut open walls. Your pipes are cleaned out and epoxy is blown through. Your existing pipes are restored to good as new condition with at least another 50 years of service life.
About the Author:
Brian LeMaire is President of CuraFlo and has been in the plumbing industry since 1981. He is a qualified Journeyman plumber throughout all of Canada as well as a State registered plumbing contractor in Ohio. Find out more about low water flow at curaflo, or ask questions about leak repair at the Pipe Problems blog |
