If you save water, you can reduce your household costs and do something good for the environment at the same time. Drinking water consumption can be significantly reduced just by going to the toilet.
Great savings potential when flushing toilets
According to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, around 40 liters of drinking water per person in Germany is used to flush toilets every day. In older toilets, around 9 to 14 liters flow per flush. 6 to 9 liters are completely sufficient for a perfect rinsing process – in many cases even less. The Federal Ministry sees great potential for savings here.
Modern toilet bowls are usually suitable for water-saving use
The prerequisite for an economical flushing process is that the toilet bowl is suitable for water-saving use. This means that the connected toilet bowl achieves a sufficient flushing effect despite the small amount of water. Otherwise, unpleasant odors and urine scale can occur, warns the Federal Ministry for the Environment. The test number from the Institute for Building Technology Safety, which can be read on the toilet bowl, provides information about its suitability for water-saving use. If it ends with the numbers 6 or 61, the toilet bowls can easily be equipped with more economical flushing devices.
Economical flushing devices
For example, water-saving cisterns are suitable for this, as they dose the amount of flushing water according to the set filling level. According to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, cisterns are set to an unnecessarily high amount of water. Modern toilets are therefore usually equipped with two buttons, which enable the flushing volume to be significantly reduced by using the small “economy button”. Valuable water can also be saved by interrupting the rinsing process – for example by pressing a button a second time to stop the rinsing process.
Another option is to install water-saving pressure flushers. However, the prerequisite for their use is a line pressure of between one, two and four bar, according to the Federal Environment Ministry. A pressure flusher is considered water-saving if only 3 to 4 liters of flushing water flow after a short tap, and 6 to 9 liters of flushing water when pressed for a longer period of time.
Maintain cisterns regularly
According to the news portal Merkur.de, you should also check the cistern regularly for leaks. If this is the case, water flows unnoticed into the toilet bowl and the cistern is automatically refilled. Descaling the cistern can sometimes help, according to the portal.
Use rainwater
It is particularly environmentally friendly to replace the drinking water in the cistern with rainwater. The prerequisite for this is that there is enough space available to collect rainwater, according to Merkur.de. A rainwater harvesting system, consisting of a cistern, filter, domestic waterworks and pipe network, collects the rainwater and leads it via a pipe into the toilet box. The water collected in this way can also be used for washing laundry or watering the garden.
Editorial team finanzen.net