Making Your Bathroom Revonation Environmentally Friendly

By Author: Jason Delmar
Total Articles: 333
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I was renovating my bathroom and was looking to get new bathroom fixtures (vanities, mirrors, linen closet, and more importantly a water saving toilet and shower head. I started by looking online and doing a Google search for inexpensive bathroom renovation products. I found RTA (ready to assemble) bathroom vanities, RTA linen closets, and a new piece called an RTA tank topper. The tank topper is a small closet that fits above your toilet. I then looked for water saving toilets that use less water per flush and water saving shower heads that still give you a good water flow but save water while doing so. The good news was that after I did a Google search for RTA bathroom vanities, it was easy to find great products at very good prices; however, finding water saving products was not as easy.

My biggest issue about my new bathroom was that I wanted it to be environmentally friendly. The average American uses 80 to 100 gallons of water per day. This fact is a sobering statistic that is provided by the United States Geological survey. It does not sound like an outrageous number until you realize that many parts of ...
... the country routinely face seasonal droughts. So 100 gallons of water then becomes a staggering number when some parts of the country have a certain time limit on the amount of water used during periods of the day.

Going back in history from about the 1940's toilets have slowly improved in water conservation. Originally toilets used five to seven gallons per flush, in the 1980s; it was down to 3.5 gallons per flush. Since 1992 all toilets now use about 1.7 gallons. Upgrading your toilet is great for the environment and also good for your budget. In addition to saving water, the average homeowner can save about $60 per year by switching from a 5 gallon flush toilet to a 1.28 gallon per flush toilet. If you have multiple bathrooms and multiple users, you can then obviously add more to the savings.

I avoid big box retail stores, but unfortunately I was forced to buy a water saving toilet at Lowe's. Yes I bought my RTA bathroom online, but the prices were forty percent less than the big box stores and all of the local stores did not carry RTA bathroom vanities and bathroom supplies. As for the toilet, I had to go elsewhere. Surprisingly bathroom toilet manufactures have taken the water conservation idea and have developed some great products that will save water. At the big box stores, you can actually find these toilets at a good price. (Note - the author of this article does not support big box stores, but in this case, a water saving toilet is an exception. Please buy from your local retailers and the mom and pop hardware stores whenever possible.)

In the end I saved money with RTA products, helped the environment by installing a low flow toilet and shower head and also kept local stores in business by purchasing everything I possibly could at my local building supply store.
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