subject: Dont Find Yourself Knee Deep In Bad Decisions, When You Go Green With Your Plumbing [print this page] Green plumbing is all the rage these days, even if Al Gore keeps being exposed as a green energy hypocrite from time to time. Even so, proverbially going green is still intended for the good of Mother Earth, and there is a host of green plumbing options at your disposal. The only thing you have to keep in mind is never, ever make horrendous decisions when you go green with your plumbing options. So before you call your favorite plumber and make him switch some plumbing around to make it greener, consider the following disaster scenarios you should avoid when going green.
The idea of waterless urinals for public washrooms has been thrown around quite a bit lately, but are they really a helpful decision? Sure, theres nothing wrong with going green, but you want to do it in a way that wont lead to plumbing problems. Just think: Waterless urinals, as their name implies, do not use water to flush away the urine once it has been emitted. In other words, mens urine would simply sitthats right, sit!in the pipes of the buildings plumbing. That creates a whole host of reeking, stinking problems, as one school down in Boca Raton, Florida found out the hard way.
Spanish River High Schoolappropriately named for this storyand its administrators were fans of the Lets go green concept, so much so that they actually installed the aforementioned waterless urinals in their schools washrooms. However, as with so many things in the green agenda, the idea always sounds a zillion times better than the reality of the concept. The administrators and the students at Spanish River High School found this out the hard way when the urine in the pipes actually started to seep from behind the walls and into the schools halls! It turned out that, with waterless urinals, the urine just sits in the pipes, which just happened to be made out of copper in the case of the urinals at Spanish River High School. With no water to flush away this urine, it actually began to eat its way out of the copper pipes and presto! The urine found its way into the halls, which, needless to say, is not where anyone wanted it to be.
Dual flush toilets are another favorite of the green movement simply because they conserve water. However, as seen above with the waterless urinals cautionary tale, going green is not all it is cracked up to be, especially when you consider that conserving water can lead to unintended but extremely aggravating nuisances. Thats the case in point with these dual flush toilets, too, so before you have your plumbing accommodate these toilets, consider the following.
There are four basic problems with these dual flush toilets; you might want your plumber to help explain them to you. First, there have been quite a number of reports of these toilets clogging, and who wants a clogged-up toilet? This problem occurs quite frequently if the dual flush toilet gets installed onto a sewage system that simply was not meant to support a toilet of this kind. Another equally prohibitive problem with these types of toilet is the expense associated with them. As with many green energy products and ideas, the cost is always greater than traditional ways of doing things. The low demand for these toilets is one of the reasons the costs associated with them are high. Even cleaning is a hassle with these green energy toilets! Lowes actually states that dual flush toilets necessitate more cleaning than regular models, and that has to do with the decrease of water retention in the toilet bowl, which leads to a dirtier toilet. Finally, dual flush toilets are not always compatible with older homes, which can turn into a renovation nightmare.
Because of the problems associated at least with these two green energy examples, it is better to stick with traditional urinals and toilets until they can improve the technology behind these green ideas.
