If you have an older toilet with a 5 gallon tank, there’s an old trick that you can use to convert it to use less water. By simply filling a half gallon container and submerging it in the tank, you can cut your toilet water usage by 10 percent or more. Lifehacker’s Gina T. points us to a wikiHow artcile on the topic:
If you, like most Americans, flush 5 times daily, your family of 5 will save 350 gallons (1325 liters) of water every month [2]. These savings will significantly cut your water bill, too.
Adjusting the tank volume will affect your toilet’s ability to flush more, uh, serious business, so your mileage may vary. A lot of folks have a second bathroom that’s used more often for lighter work, in which case this hack could save quite a bit of water over a year’s time.
How to Convert Any Toilet to a Low Flush Toilet – [via] Link
4 thoughts on “Save a half-gallon of water on each flush”
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I was in Brisbane, Australia recently. All of the toilets I saw had two buttons – one for a full flush, one for a partial flush. I thought it was a brilliant solution to the issue of needing a bigger flush occasionally, but allowing for less water in most cases. I haven’t seen those here, but if I ever need to replace a commode, I’ll look for one./K
That’s an awful lot of trouble to go to. Just put a brick or two in the tank and you’ll save about as much.