Reducing the water your toilet uses
The toilet is probably one of the biggest uses of water in your house, especially considering the number of times it gets used. I’ve seen many tips about putting a bottle of water in your toilet so that it uses less water. I was very confused by this until I recently read a blog post thoroughly explaining this.
This is primarily good for older toilets, in older homes like mine (no low-flow toilet available in 1950). The way this works is that you take an old bottle of water. Since I don’t drink bottled water very much, I used an empty bottle of Gatorade. Fill the bottle with water, close it tight, and put it in tank of the toilet. This works because the water in the tank fills to a certain line when the toilet is flushed. So the bottle takes up space in the tank, meaning that the tank will fill with less water. If you use a 12 oz. bottle, the tank will fill with approximately 12 oz. less of water. Not enough that you will notice (I did this a few days ago and my husband still hasn’t noticed), but 12 oz. less water used every time you flush can really add up.
If you already have a low-flow toilet, pat yourself on the back. If you are about to build or remodel, you should really check out the dual flush toilets. This is a great concept! No, it does not flush twice as the name might imply. It has two flush settings. So if you only need a “little” flush (which is probably most of the time), you have that setting, but if things happen and you need a “big” flush then that is what the second setting is for. I’ve heard this is rather popular is Europe and heard that some models essentially have one handle, where if you move it one way you get the “little” flush and if you move it the other you get the “big” flush. I read about this over at treehugger.com.