Fun_People Archive
28 Feb
Re: Doing your part.

Date: Wed, 28 Feb 96 16:22:32 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Re: Doing your part.
Cc: Greg Rose <Greg_Rose@sydney.sterling.com>

Forwarded-by: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
From: Greg Rose <Greg_Rose@sydney.sterling.com>

>  What's special about this one is its two flush levels -- one that uses
>  1.1 gallons per flush and another that uses 1.6 gallons.  A single-family
>  household using the Eco-Lite can save up to 22,700 gallons of water and
>  $58 a year, according to Kohler Company, the mastermind behind the toilet.

Wow! 1.6 - 1.1 is 0.5, that is, you save a half gallon by using the
half-flush instead of the full flush. (I call it half flush 'cos the
symbol on the button shows half-a-something.)

22,700 Gallons? That's 45,400 flushes. Per year.

That's 124 flushes a day. (Actually more, since the smelly ones need the
full flush, usually -- I should know, us Aussies have had these for years.
Toilets with two buttons, that is.)

Now your average nuclear family has 2.3 kids and 2 adults, so that's about
29 p/p/d (Pees per Person per Day).

Excuse me, I just have to go get the average up...

Greg.
_____________________________________________________________________________

Greg,
    Wait!  Before you hurt yourself keeping up your end of the average... be  
warned that you're making a mistake in your calculations. Their claim of a  
saving of 22,700 gallons must be based on a comparison with the old "regular"  
toilets that use between 5 and 7 gallons per flush.  Thus, even a full-flush  
addict need only flush about five thousand times a year to save 22,700  
gallons.
    Of course the worst (er, best) case would be going from the mighty  
Maxi-Throne(tm) Excalibur Whirlpool-Tsunami III (7.1 gallons per flush) to a  
strict regimen of Eco-Lite half-flushes (1.1 gallons and half-fast, too)  
thereby saving 6 gallons per flush!  Then, a mere 3,783 flushes per year (or  
10.365 flushes per day or fewer than 0.44 flushes per hour) would account for  
the 22,700 gallons!  By the way, that's a mere 2.41 p/p/d (or 0.1 p/p/h), so  
you can relax...

Peter
 Peter Langston - psl@acm.org - Seattle, WA - http://www.empire.net/~psl/
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