Flushed with success
March 04th 2008 Despite the wettest summer on record in 2007, the UK receives much less water than it used to. Our water supply is under extreme pressure – did you know that London is drier than Istanbul? Despite the reckless approach to its consumption, water is increasingly a precious commodity; in fact some people say it is the new oil.
Currently, each person in the UK uses 154 litres water per day. The biggest culprits for domestic water usage in the UK are toilets, which are accountable for 30% of water used in the home.
The Water Regulations demand that all new WC’s installed in the UK must have a maximum flush of 6 litres. However, because toilets are replaced so rarely there are an estimated 7 million old toilets in the UK which flush on up to 13 litres! This means the average UK flush is 9 litres, still too much.
In order to save water,we are encouraged to use water displacement devices to reduce the flush volume, such as the ‘hippo’, ‘freddie-frog’, ‘save-a-flush’ or even a brick. While these devices can reduce flush volumes by up to one litre, the advice is very misleading. Firstly, these devices are cumbersome, unreliable and have a short lifespan. Secondly, and more importantly, cistern displacement devices can end up using more water than the original flush! Each WC has been carefully designed to operate efficiently on a specific amount of water. If this amount is reduced (even marginally), the WC may not clear the pan effectively,and may require a second flush, thus wasting even more water.
Some bathroom manufacturers have recognised the importance of this serious issue,and have designed excellent water-saving products. For example, Twyford Bathrooms recently launched the UK’s lowest flushing WC, the award-winning Galerie Flushwise. It has a dual flush, using just 2.6 litres for the short flush and 4 litres maximum for the full flush – an effective flush of just 3 litres. It has been tested stringently, and fully conforms with the strict EN997 class 2 regulations.Moreover, it has been designed as part of the perennially popular Galerie suite, to ensure that it has an excellent design that can suit most styles of bathrooms.
Flushwise is the only WC to be awarded the WaterWise Marque. If a Galerie Flushwise was installed instead of the average 9 litre domestic WC, it would save an average of 6 litres per flush or approximately 30 litres per toilet, per day. If in the UK, if we all replaced our WC’s tomorrow with a 4/2 Galerie Flushwise we would save over 1 trillion litres of water a year, or 7 reservoirs! |
