Trim the Fat Tuesday: The Faucet Aerator, Part 2
Remember when MassSave gave us a bunch of free stuff, including an aerator for our bathroom faucet? Well, it turns out that you can get even more restrictive faucet aerators to
Reduce water flow in the bathroom sinks to save resources (and cash).
This is an especially good one if you have kids, because they tend to let the water run more than is strictly necessary for cleanliness (at least mine do). A faucet aerator restricts the flow of water out of the faucet, but mixes in air so it doesn't feel like less water on your skin.
MassSave gave us a 1.5 gallon per minute aerator, but I discovered in my research that you can get a 0.5 gpm aerator for under $5 at the Home Depot. We had to wait a bit because it was a special order, but once we got it, it was a fast switcheroo to replace the old ones.
The downstairs bath has a chrome finish, and that was just as easy as unscrewing the old aerator and screwing the new one on, since it's easy to find a matching chrome aerator. The upstairs bathroom is a dark bronze finish, so we got an aerator insert instead. That required unscrewing the old aerator, swapping out the plastic insert, and screwing it back in place. Neither one was hard to do.
Now that these are in place in both bathrooms (you could also do the kitchen, but I decided that it would actually be a huge pain to wait forever to fill all those big pots of water we use in canning season — and the kids don't use that sink much, so we have better control over the potential waste), I went back to a handy online calculator to see how much money this switch is going to save us.
Savings per month: $11
Total savings for July: $800.50 (this month's savings plus the savings already in place from previous months!)
Total savings in 2014: $3384
Reduce water flow in the bathroom sinks to save resources (and cash).
This is an especially good one if you have kids, because they tend to let the water run more than is strictly necessary for cleanliness (at least mine do). A faucet aerator restricts the flow of water out of the faucet, but mixes in air so it doesn't feel like less water on your skin.
MassSave gave us a 1.5 gallon per minute aerator, but I discovered in my research that you can get a 0.5 gpm aerator for under $5 at the Home Depot. We had to wait a bit because it was a special order, but once we got it, it was a fast switcheroo to replace the old ones.
The downstairs bath has a chrome finish, and that was just as easy as unscrewing the old aerator and screwing the new one on, since it's easy to find a matching chrome aerator. The upstairs bathroom is a dark bronze finish, so we got an aerator insert instead. That required unscrewing the old aerator, swapping out the plastic insert, and screwing it back in place. Neither one was hard to do.
Turns out that moving from 1.5 gpm to just 0.5 gpm in both bathrooms should cut our bills by $130 per year. And, you know, save the earth and stuff.
Savings per month: $11
Total savings for July: $800.50 (this month's savings plus the savings already in place from previous months!)
Total savings in 2014: $3384
Comments
Post a Comment