Drains and Faucets

For Drains and Faucets, consider: Drain Cleaners, Drain Cleaning, Faucet Installation and Repair, Household Plumbing Projects, Low flow Kitchen and Bath Faucets, and Plumbing supplies and Techniques.

Every time that water leaves your house you are draining away a natural resource. Low flow faucets are great way to deduce the lost resources. Naturally, low flow shower heads also help along with water efficient clothes washers and dish washers. As Americans, we use an average of 100 gallons of water per day for each household member. Our consumption is much higher than the world average, so new ‘greywater’ technology and techniques are also available to filter and re-use sink and shower drain water for toilet water or lawn and garden irrigation. To put the ‘water’ scene is perspective, here are some water facts:

What are the Facts on Water and its consumption?

WATER FACTS:

1. Water covers nearly three-fourths of the earth's surface.
2. Most of the earth's surface water is permanently frozen or salty.
3. Over 90% of the world's supply of fresh water is located in Antarctica.
4. The earth's total allotment of water has a volume of about 344 million cubic miles. Of this:
5. 315 million cubic miles (93%) is sea water!
6. 9 million cubic miles (2.5%) is in aquifers deep below the earth's surface.
7. 7 million cubic miles (2%) is frozen in polar ice caps.
8. 53,000 cubic miles of water pass through the planet's lakes and streams.
9. 4,000 cubic miles of water is atmospheric moisture.
10. 3,400 cubic miles of water are locked within the bodies of living things.
11. If all the world's water were fit into a gallon jug, the fresh water available for us to use would equal only about one tablespoon.
12. It doesn't take much salt to make water "salty." If one-thousandth (or more) of the weight of water is from salt, then the water is "saline."
13. Saline water can be desalinated for use as drinking water by going through a process to remove the salt from the water. The process costs so much that it isn't done on a very large scale. The cost of desalting sea water in the U.S. ranges from $1 to $16 per 1000 gallons.
14. The overall amount of water on our planet has remained the same for two billion years.
15. The United States consumes water at twice the rate of other industrialized nations.
16. 1.2 Billion — Number of people worldwide who do not have access to clean water. 6.8 Billion — Gallons of water Americans flush down their toilets every day.
17. Each day almost 10,000 children under the age of 5 in Third World countries die as a result of illnesses contracted by use of impure water.
18. Most of the world's people must walk at least 3 hours to fetch water.
19. By 2025, 52 countries—with two-thirds of the world's population—will likely have water shortages.
20. The average single-family home uses 80 gallons of water per person each day in the winter and 120 gallons in the summer. Showering, bathing and using the toilet account for about two-thirds of the average family's water usage.
21. The average person needs 2 quarts of water a day.
22. During the 20th century, water use increased at double the rate of population growth; while the global population tripled, water use per capita increased by six times.
23. Water use in the United States alone leaped from 330 million gallons per day in 1980 to 408 million gallons per day in 1990, despite a decade of improvements in water-saving technology.
24. On a global average, most freshwater withdrawls—69%—are used for agriculture, while industry accounts for 23% and municipal use (drinking water, bathing and cleaning, and watering plants and grass) just 8%.
25. Water used around the house for such things as drinking, cooking, bathing, toilet flushing, washing clothes and dishes, watering lawns and gardens, maintaining swimming pools, and washing cars accounts for only 1% of all the water used in the U.S. each year.
26. Eighty percent of the fresh water we use in the U.S. is for irrigating crops and generating thermoelectric-power.
27. More than 87% of the water consumed in Utah is used for agriculture and irrigation.
28. Per capita water use in the western U.S. is much higher than in any other region, because of agricultural needs in this arid region. In 1985, daily per capita consumption in Idaho was 22,200 gallons versus 152 gallons in Rhode Island.
29. A corn field of one acre gives off 4,000 gallons of water per day in evaporation.
30. It takes about 6 gallons of water to grow a single serving of lettuce. More than 2,600 gallons is required to produce a single serving of steak.
31. It takes almost 49 gallons of water to produce just one eight-ounce glass of milk. That includes water consumed by the cow and to grow the food she eats, plus water used to process the milk.
32. About 6,800 gallons of water is required to grow a day's food for a family of four.
33. The average American consumes 1,500 pounds of food each year; 1,000 gallons of water are required to grow and process each pound of that food—1.5 million gallons of water is invested in the food eaten by just one person! This 200,000-cubic-feet-plus of water-per-person would be enough to cover a football field four feet deep.
34. About 39,090 gallons of water is needed to make an automobile, tires included.
35. Only 7% of the country's landscape is in a riparian zone, only 2% of which still supports riparian vegetation.
36. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimate that 70% of the riparian habitat nationwide has been lost or altered.
37. More than 247 million acres of United States' wetlands have been filled, dredged or channelized—an area greater than the size of California, Nevada and Oregon combined.
38. Over 90% of the nearly 900,000 acres of riparian areas on Bureau of Land Management land are in degraded condition due to livestock grazing.
39. Riparian areas in the West provide habitat for more species of birds than all other western vegetation combined; 80% of neotropical migrant species (mostly songbirds) depend on riparian areas for nesting or migration.
40. Fully 80% of all vertebrate wildlife in the Southwest depend on riparian areas for at least half of their life.
41. Of the 1200 species listed as threatened or endangered, 50% depend on rivers and streams.
42. One fifth of the world's freshwater fish—2,000 of 10,000 species identified—are endangered, vulnerable, or extinct. In North America, the continent most studied, 67% of all mussels, 51% of crayfish, 40% of amphibians, 37% of fish, and 75% of freshwater mollusks are rare, imperiled, or already gone.
43. At least 123 freshwater species became extinct during the 20th century. These include 79 invertebrates, 40 fishes, and 4 amphibians. (There may well have been other species that were never identified.)
44. Freshwater animals are disappearing five times faster than land animals.
45. In the Pacific Northwest, over 100 stocks and subspecies of salmon and trout have gone extinct and another 200 are at risk due to a host of factors, dams and the loss of riparian habitat being prime factors.
46. A 1982 study showed that areas cleared of riparian vegetation in the Midwest had erosion rates of 15 to 60 tons per year.
47. One mature tree in a riparian area can filter as much as 200 pounds of nitrates runoff per year.
48. At least 9.6 million households and $390 billion in property lie in flood prone areas in the United States. The rate of urban growth in floodplains is approximately twice that of the rest of the country.
49. If all the water in the Great Lakes was spread evenly across the continental U.S., the ground would be covered with almost 10 feet of water.
50. One gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds.

The right home improvement products, techniques, and services:
Contractors, home improvement stores, and specialty shops in your area may not yet have a complete familiarity with the ‘green’ opportunities, products, system integration, and overall savings potential. So, you may get some resistance, since people in general are typically more comfortable recommending something that they are already familiar with rather than something new. To help break the inertia, use the information across this website like our Return on Investment Master ROI Table. Also feel free to post a question in our forum on the message board about a particular need for your home relative to your area. Our team has spent multiple years aggregating research from public and private sector performance reports and from manufacturers and homeowners across the country in order to provide you with the perspective you may need to see the initial payback and long term advantages. Environmental enthusiasts and leading institutions like the American Institute of Architects and the National Association of Realtors, see the value and link into our resources to support their members.

The Green Home:
For your overall home improvement, you can save money, improve your family’s health, and save the planet. Find out for free how much it will cost to do different types of home improvement in your home from a qualified and member approved contractor in your area. Get a FREE Quote . Plus, regardless of the size and scope of your home improvement project, save money and keep your home clean with the top rated chemical free and concentrated Green Home Cleaning Products.

Home Improvement Basics:
When it comes to home improvement basics, look for interior home improvements like creating a clean, safe, and healthy home through sustainable ‘green’ furniture, home décor, zero VOC and Interior Paint, plus ENERGY STAR Appliances and Electronics. For energy and utility savings you can focus on insulation and air sealing, windows, doors, lighting and skylights, water saving plumbing opportunities, and high efficiency heating and air conditioning systems. On the outside of your house, look for exterior home improvement opportunities through landscape design and gardening plus solar energy, wind and other power sources. If you are undertaking a major home renovation, an additions, or building a new home, then take the lead to ‘go green’ in as many ways as possible to save money and the environment.