AAOA Blog

Quick Tip #3:  Stop Flushing Money Down the Drain

If you have older toilets in your home or rental property, say pre-1994, you are probably spending far more money on water than you need to. 

Toilet flushing accounts for about 40% of household water costs, and with rates going up, this is a must-fix item.

Installing new energy efficient toilets is one way to eliminate the problem.  But if new toilets are not in your immediate future, there are a few easy alternatives that will lower your water usage and costs:

Toilet Tummy.  Invest $5.00 in one of the many products designed to make old toilets more efficient, like the Toilet Tummy, a water bottle especially shaped to hang in the tank of your toilet. The water displacement will cause your toilets to waste less.

Adjust the levels.  The water level for many toilet tanks is adjustable.  Click here to see how. 

The old water jug in the tank trick. Fill a half gallon plastic jug with water, and place it in the tank. Before you go through the trouble, check to make sure there is room in the tank for the jug. 

With any of these methods, test the toilet to make sure there is still enough pressure to flush the bowl.  If the tenant has to flush multiple times, you haven’t saved anything!

For more information and a step-by-step guide to each of these techniques, visit the handyman at Dover Projects.

Unexpectedly high water bills? See what happened to one homeowner,  just for fun.

See last week’s Landlord Quick Tip.

Let us know what you think by commenting below. For questions about our blog, contact our editor at kim@joinaaoa.org.

American Apartment Owners Association offers discounts for landlords on products and services related to your rental investment, including real estate forms, tenant debt collection, tenant background checks, insurance and financing. Find out more at www.joinaaoa.org.

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Tags: lower+water+bills, home+repair, landlords, DIY+toilet+repair, apartment+owners, real+estate+forms

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