Saving Water: Installing an Aerator

Apartment living in New York often means living with very old fixtures. If you have an old kitchen faucet, whether you plan to replace it or have no control to do so, there is something you can do now to make your kitchen a lean, green, water-saving machine: install an aerator in the kitchen faucet.

An aerator is a small metal or plastic cylinder that fits inside the end of your faucet and spreads the stream of water, which creates a steady spray rather than a pour. This causes less water to feel like more and reduces splashing.

Old faucet without aerator

Old faucet retrofitted with an aerator

The latest faucet models come with an integral aerator to set the water flow rate. Those that don't, especially if they are older models, are likely using a huge amount of water - up to about 5 gallons a minute! Installing a 1.0 gallon per minute (gpm) aerator will cut that water use by over 60% without a perceivable difference. Unless your faucet splashes, in which case you might notice no longer getting wet.

To start saving water today, you will need an aerator and hands (just one will do.) Universal aerators (which should fit most faucets) cost less than $3 and take about 3 seconds to install.

How to Save Water: Replacing a Shower Head

The hardest part of replacing a shower head is choosing among the various options for a new one. Once that's done, replacing the fixture takes about 10 minutes. If you're a renter, you can keep the old one and swap it back when you leave, taking your water-efficient new shower head with you.

You will need:
-A new shower head
-Plumber's tape (also referred to as Teflon tape)
-Pliers or a wrench
-A rag

1. Use the pliers or wrench to loosen and unscrew the shower head from the pipe that leads into the wall. If you plan on saving the old shower head, place a rag between the fixture and the pliers to keep from scratching it.
2. Clean off any old tape or dirt on the threaded end of the pipe and wrap some new plumber's tape around the threaded end of the flange. Apply several layers clockwise and wrap it tightly, making sure it gets pressed into the grooves of the threading. This will prevent leaks between the pipe and the fixture.
3. Screw on the new shower head (no need to use the wrench or pliers)
4. Turn the shower on to make sure there are no leaks. Tighten the shower head or reapply plumber's tape if needed.

Save Water, Add Style: Choosing a New Shower Head

By far the easiest plumbing fixture to replace yourself is the shower head, and doing so can have a huge impact on the looks and water use of your bathroom. Older shower heads use a LOT of water, raising both the water bill as well as the energy bill, since heating hot water constitutes a large part of building energy use. If your shower head was installed before 1992 (when the Energy & Policy Act of 1992 went into effect), it can be using over 5 gallons of water a minute - enough to fill an entire bathtub in 9 minutes flat!  Replacing that shower head could reduce shower consumption by about 70%. Even if you have a 2.5 gallon per minute (gpm) fixture, which became the legal limit after 1992, updating to a 2.0 or even a 1.75 gpm model can save 20%-30% of your water use.

What's wrong with a 2.5 gpm fixture? Well, nothing, really. But the thing to keep in mind when you hear about plumbing code or legal limits for plumbing fixtures is that it is a law. Meaning the bare minimum. Meaning the WORST possible thing you can still legally build because it is against the law to do any worse. If you want to accomplish significant water savings and have the fixture pay for itself in about a year, it’s possible to do much, much better. 

The great news is that there have been leaps and bounds in plumbing technology in the past few years, and switching to a high-efficiency shower head does not mean sacrificing your shower experience. Not. One. Bit. Regardless of what your brother's friend's aunt said about one she tried 30 years ago. Shower manufacturers have tweaked the size of the droplets and the speed of the flow to create products that look and feel (and wash out shampoo from long hair, reports a girl with long hair named me) just as well. In fact, this one reason alone may make for an even better shower experience: your water-hogging shower head will no longer cause you to run out of hot water.