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Believe it or not, a simple bathroom faucet has the potential to waste a significant amount of water and energy. The easiest place to start correcting this problem is by replacing the faucet aerator, a small piece that screws into the end of the faucet and controls the flow rate of water from the faucet. Most standard faucet aerators flow at a rate of 2.2 – 2.5 gallons per minute while some older faucets tend to run even higher, all the way up to 5 gallons a minute in some cases! According to claims made by most aerator manufacturers, a facility could realize an average savings of 7 – 8% on its water bill simply by swapping out old faucet aerators with new, high efficiency aerators.
The Eric Ryan Corporation has been able to verify such claims by implementing aerator projects at several different hotels across the United States. By tracking the usage of the hotels and calculating the savings generated by these small devices, ERC has seen properties not only meet these 7 – 8% savings claims, but some have even managed to move past the 8% mark. For instance, in September of 2009, a hotel in New Jersey which was retrofitted with 1.5 gpm aerators saved $477.73 on a bill which totaled $5,664.52, a savings of nearly 8.5% and 33,044 gallons! Another hotel located in California was able to save $938.47 on a bill totaling $11,241.44, saving 8.3% and approximately 123,645 gallons of water.
It is hard to imagine that such a simple change can have such a drastic effect on your water consumption and cost. Being that an aerator is such a small piece of equipment, it is no wonder that this quick fix is often overlooked to focus on bigger, more mouth-watering projects. It is important to understand that small, seemingly simple concepts such as faucet aerators can produce a significant amount of savings. Using the examples above, a single hotel could save a staggering $5,000 - $11,000 annually, which could go to the bottom line of the hotel or be put towards additional energy efficiency projects.
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