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SUSTAINABLE SAVINGS
With yet another year of drought conditions ahead, water conservation is even more important than ever.
by Emily Landes
Ever since residents began spending more of their time at home last year, utility bills have been on the rise. Plus, the increased emphasis on personal hygiene brought on by the pandemic may mean that water use in particular is likely to be impacted.
In 2018, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission passed a series of rate hikes for water and wastewater that went up an average of just under nine percent each year for the last four years. The latest increase went into effect in July of this year. These increases came after a series of earlier price hikes that more than doubled rates between 2010 and 2017. On top of that, years of drought conditions plus deferred maintenance on an aging infrastructure add up to water rates that are likely to keep on rising for the foreseeable future.
Similarly, in 2019, the board of the Sacramento Suburban Water District approved a rate increase between 3 and 5 percent for every year beginning in 2020 and ending in 2024. In 2020, multifamily residential rates were $1.26 per 100 cubic feet of water used and by 2024 they will be $1.43, a 13 percent increase in just four years.
Just because rates and usage are up that doesn’t mean owners need to sit back and accept ever- higher water bills. There are a number of easy, economical fixes that will cut down on water usage and help save this precious natural resource during the extreme drought conditions across the state.
TACKLING TOILETS
Leaky and inefficient toilets, showers and sinks are the biggest contributors to wasteful water use. In fact, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense program, toilets alone account for nearly 30 percent of the average home’s indoor water consumption.
If you have older toilets, they may be wasting water with every flush. Toilets installed before 1977 use 5 gallons per flush, and those installed between 1977 and 1994 use 3.5 gallons per flush. Most toilets installed after 1994 use 1.6 gallons per flush, which is a huge improvement on the older models but still 20 percent more water than a new WaterSense- labeled toilet.
WaterSense toilets, approved by the EPA and independently certified to meet a high bar in both performance and efficiency, use only 1.28 gallons per flush. Depending on the age of your existing toilets, replacing them with WaterSense models could reduce water use by up to 60 percent per flush.
The EPA estimates that a toilet upgrade can save the average family 13,000 gallons of water per year. Obviously, those savings will be even larger in a multiunit building when toilets are replaced building wide. Plus, these toilets typically qualify for rebates from the SFPUC, bringing down the cost even further.
APARTMENT MANAGEMENT MAGAZINE - SEPTEMBER 2021 CS-33