Flushing too much water and money

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The scene yesterday on the front lawn of Paul and Marion Kogita's Beacon Hill home seemed a bit bizarre.

A Seattle Public Utilities official and a plumbing contractor flushed pingpong balls down two toilets as three television cameras and four radio microphones recorded the sights and sounds of the water and balls rushing 30 feet through clear plastic tubes into two white buckets.

Toilet rebate For more information on the rebate program, including where to turn in your old toilet, call 206-684-SAVE or www.savingwater.org.

But as the bucket on the left filled with water and the one on the right became only a third full, the reason for the toilet-flushing spectacle became clear: The water-efficient toilet on the right was using a lot less water than the old water-guzzling model on the left.

To encourage the purchase of low-flow toilets, Seattle Public Utilities and the 25 suburban utilities it supplies with water are offering a $40-a-toilet rebate if customers buy a low-flow toilet between now and Aug. 18 and give their old one to the utilities. The used toilets will be recycled and used as road-bed material.

"What you're sitting on today, you could be driving on tomorrow," said utilities spokeswoman Preeti Shridhar.

Toilets account for about 25 percent of indoor water use, making them the biggest guzzler in the house, said Al Dietemann, senior technical analyst for Seattle Public Utilities.

"By putting in water-efficient fixtures, you can save two-thirds of this water," said Dietemann as he flushed yet another time. "The bottom line is they're going to save people a lot of money."

The average two-person household will save about $80 a year in water bills by switching from a higher-flow toilet to a low-flow one. Those who buy "dual flush" toilets - which have two buttons so less water is used for liquid waste than for solid waste - can save more than $100 a year, he said. The rebate is $60 for dual-flush toilets.

Because of a 1992 federal law, all new toilets sold today are low-flow and use 1.6 gallons a flush, rather than the 3.5 to 5 gallons most older models use.