Bathroom Revamp: Savings by the Gallon

There's a reason Europeans call them water closets. From our toilets to our tubs, roughly 60 percent of a home's water consumption takes place in the bathroom, according to the California Urban Water Conservation Council. After this past summer's droughts and floods, which wreaked havoc on water quality making it either unavailable or unuseable, any renovations or improvements you make in your bathroom should be done with an eye on the aquatic, especially in older homes. Past manipulations to your existing fixtures may be luring you into a false sense of security about how much water you're actually using.

Efficient Toilets?

Guzzling 27 percent of your household supply every year, your toilet is by far your home's largest water user. At that rate, you want to be sure that the federally mandated, 1.6-gallon-per-flush (gpf) model sitting in your loo really only uses 1.6 gpf—it may use more.

A 2000 study commissioned by the city of Tucson revealed that then-new 1.6-gpf toilets actually used 1.98 gpf on average, due to double flushing caused by poor performance or to malfunctioning parts. Leaking "early-close flappers," devices that prevent a 3.5-gallon tank from releasing more than 1.6 gallons, had been replaced with standard 3.5-gpf flappers, the study found, and removable toilet dams, which also prevent a 3.5-gallon tank from releasing more than 1.6 gallons, had broken or were intentionally removed.

If you've purchased a home with a pre-installed 1.6-gpf model, there's no way of knowing whether the previous owner made any such inefficient modifications. As the parts wear out—they generally last around five years—be sure to ask the hardware store specifically for 1.6-gpf replacements. Also, be wary of toilet-tank retrofits, kits designed to convert old 3.5-gpf models into 1.6-gpf toilets, says Gary Woodard, co-author of the Tucson study. "You're doing something to the toilet that it isn't really designed for," he says. "It's really best to get a low-flow toilet."