Clean drinking water is no longer a given, even in the richest enclaves of the wealthiest nations of the world, including the United States.
The need for water conservation has become imperative. With droughts increasingly occurring in California and other locales, it is now a requirement that all known plumbing technologies be deployed to aid this important conservation.
Fortunately, most plumbers are taking the problem seriously and are following new guidelines that require upgrades in piping, water output fixtures, and waste water elimination.
Whether for new construction or remodeling and repair, savvy plumbers now insist that property owners comply with tighter standards of water use.
New Products and Procedures
The Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is recommending that all plumbing systems throughout the nation be updated to use water saving technologies. For instance, water conserving dual flush toilets should replace older, less efficient high volume single flush toilets.
These new toilets have two flush buttons or levers, one for small flushes using only 1.1 gallon per flush (GPF), and another for larger flushes, using 1.6 GPF. The EPA still allows for higher flush rate toilets in institutions for larger elimination payloads.
The upgrades to faucets and shower heads that use minimum water flow, while also producing water output pressure, is a process that plumbers have mastered. Coupled with this are new technologies to detect leaks so they can be repaired by plumbers quickly.
Separate, but related systems are being installed to upgrade the handling of non-potable greywater, waste water from bathing, hand washing, clothes washing, and dish washing. Greywater does not require sewage treatment, because it is free from the harmful bacteria in human excrement.
Since greywater is safe to recycle on-site, it can be used for irrigation of lawns, gardens, and even commercial farming. Keeping greywater out of sewage drains also reduces flow to sewage treatment plants, with less contaminated water.
The Plumbing Heroes
Plumbing supply companies and the plumbing professionals who buy from them are uniting in this new war on wasting water. The goal is to preserve our reservoirs, underground aquifers, and treated water supply storage tanks, so there is enough clean potable water for future, larger populations, regardless of environmental and climatic changes.
Installing new technology faucets, water conserving toilets, greywater recycling plumbing and pumps, and better water-use monitoring equipment is imperative as a first step to safeguarding our water supplies.
Interested in going green? Call Hull Plumbing at (405) 246-9763 to make your Oklahoma City home more energy efficient.The post Make Your Plumbing System More Efficient appeared first on Hull Plumbing.