Dual Flush Toilets

Even though most people want to conserve water and know that water conservation is important for the health of our planet, few people realize how much water they are using when they flush the toilet. Traditional toilets use several gallons of water per flush, and in a busy household of four, the amount of water needed for toilet flushing can be quite significant. This is especially true if your toilet is older (pre-1992) - in this case it can use up to five gallons of water each time you flush. Toilets manufactured after 1992 were required to be designed to use 1.6 gallons of water or less for each flush. And while this is a great savings in terms of water used per household, we can still do better by installing a dual flush toilet.

These green plumbing products provide the most efficient means of flushing and uses the least amount of water to do so. A dual flush toilet has two separate flushing mechanisms; one is for a short flush, the other for a full flush. This allows the user to choose the amount of water that they need for each use as the short flush is engineered to flush away fluids while solids are better dealt with using a full flush. Even when used on full flush mode, the dual flush toilet typically uses less than one gallon of water and provides optimal performance.

When choosing a dual flush toilet for your home, look for those that feature the Water Sense seal from the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA. The Water Sense program is used by the federal government to identify products that help make the best use of our water supply. Water Sense has put their stamp of approval on a variety of high efficiency toilets, including many dual flush models. In addition to saving water, the dual flush toilets in the Water Sense program are manufactured under high standards in order to make the EPA's list. According to the EPA, if all households used toilets in the Water Sense program, we could save as much as two billion gallons of water each and every day of the year.

One of the most popular dual flush toilets that proudly display the Water Sense seal from the EPA is made by Toto. The Toto CST416M-01 Aquia Dual Flush Elongated Toilet, around $400. This toilet is not only engineered to save water (it uses only 8/10ths of a gallon in the short flush mode), it looks great and is easy to clean with a skirted trap way.