High Efficiency Toilets (HETs)

It is time for toilet talk. In a previous post I provided CalWater’s list of rebates for water conserving devices. Hopefully you all sign up for the water conservation kit and they are sending it to you in four to six weeks (really it takes that long?). There were two different rebates for high efficiency toilets. This rebate requires you to install the toilet, fill out a form, send it in with the receipt, and wait six to eight weeks for your check.

CalWater lists two different toilet rebates (the form is available on-line www.calwater.com) one for $50 and the other for $100.  The $50 dollar rebate is for a non-premium, high-efficiency toilet and the $100 one is for a premium HET (nothing is too good for your poo). High efficiency toilets (HET) are those that use 1.28 gpf or less.

I have two toilets in my house. One is an original 50-year old toilet that was installed when my house it was built in 1955.  Toilets are date stamped and my tank says it was manufactured in August 1950.  It stores 5 – 6 gallons of water in the tank and flushes about 5 gallons per flush (gpf). That is 3,650 gallons a year if I flushed two times a day! I adjusted the float valve years ago so that it only flushed 4 gallons. My second toilet is a newer, low flow, 1.6 gpf toilet installed six years ago. Since I live alone only the newer toilet is used on a regular basis, so the older one hasn’t been a retrofit priority for me. With rebates available and drought looming I thought it might be time to flush my old one no more.

So I checked prices for new low-flow toilets. I was potty shocked. The premium HETs ranged in price from $600 – $1,200 and I’m sure there are more expensive ones, but heck you can get a $100 rebate (if there is rebate money left)! Since none of these premium units were self wiping I decided to look at the “non-premium” ones. These ranged in price from $130 to $600, a little more in my price range and they were the same size as the premium ones.

I’ll be doing some plumbing this weekend it looks like. Just in time too. I’m replacing my old fireplace insert with a new EPA-certified fireplace insert utilizing a $1,000 rebate from the Butte County Air Quality Management District (more on that in a later post – they are out of money right now) and new building codes require that whenever you get a building permit, yes even for installing a fireplace insert, you have to bring your pre-1994 toilets up to code.

Remember if you are planning on remodeling or doing anything that requires a building permit plan on upgrading your pre-1994 toilet with a new 1.28 gpf HET.

Toilet Water Saving Measures

If you don’t have $200 or more to put into a HET there are other options for saving water with your water closet:

1. If it is brown, flush it down. If it is yellow, let it mellow.
2. Adjust the float valve so that it shuts off before it fills all the way.
3. Place food dye (toilet test kit) in the tank and see if any of the dye ends up in the bowl. If it does the flapper valve is leaking or the float valve is not shutting off. Repair it.
4. Place a water bottle in the tank. Use liter or gallon plastic bottles filled with water into the tank to reduce the amount of water in each flush.