Throughout our day-to-day lives, we use up a lot of water. Whether this is through cleaning the dishes, drinking, cooking, or even in the bathroom, water is needed throughout your day. Out of this, one of the most prominent uses of water is your toilet. Toilets use up large amounts of water to flush down waste and are used tens of times throughout the day.
While each flush may not amount to much, toilets end up using a lot of water over time. To help you understand how much water your toilet uses for a flush, we have curated a list of the types of toilets and water usage for each of them.
Make sure to check the toilet flapper if the toilet keeps flushing a limited amount of water.
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4 Types of Toilets & their Water Usage: gallons, liters and litres
Simple Old Toilets
This type of toilet primarily consists of earlier models that were manufactured in the mid-late 1900s. These toilets were often quite basic and did not boast any modern features like bidets or modern materials. Due to this, they were also behind when it comes to reducing saving water and tend to use the most water out of all toilets.
The average toilet form this time used anywhere between 5-8 gallons 19 liters and 30 liters per flush. This means that you would be using more water than 5-7 people drink in a whole day. When combined with the multiple uses throughout the day, these toilets ended up using around 500 liters of water per day which is quite harmful to the environment.
Thankfully, as time progressed and more people became aware of this problem, toilet technology gradually got better. Modern toilets come in various varieties and have cut down on water consumption per flush by a large margin.
Dual-Flush Toilets
One of the more unique types of toilets, dual-flush toilets have two flush options built-in. One of these options is designed to use less water for smaller flushing requirements while the other, usually the larger button, is for a full flush. Thanks to this smart technology, users are able to avoid using excess water for lesser requirements which saves a lot in the long run.
The exact amount of water used by these toilets ranges between 0.8-1.6 gallons or 3 liters and 6 liters per flush. While the smaller half-flush option usually takes around 3.5 liters of water, the larger flush can go from anywhere between 5 to 6 liters of water usage.
With their water-saving design, these toilets are commonly seen in Asian countries such as India. This aids in saving water and has made a huge large-scale difference in many places around the globe.
Low-Flush Toilets
As the name suggests, these toilets were meant to reduce the amount of water used per flush. They could be called the successor to ancient toilets and created a large impact on water usage by bringing down per flush usage to 1.5 gallons or 6 liters. Thanks to this, the average person’s toilet water consumption stays around 100-150 liters instead of going into the higher hundreds.
That being said, the change to low-flush toilets was quite difficult as using less water to flush waste was not so easy. Many groups were not comfortable with these toilets and felt like the toilets were not cleaning out the waste properly. Thankfully, they have gradually caught on and are now the norm globally.
High-Efficiency Toilets
One of the most modern types of toilets on this list, High-efficiency toilets are designed to use minimal water while being convenient to use. The average toilet in this category uses anywhere between 1 and 1.2 gallons (4 liters and 5 liters) making it a great option if you want to keep your water usage minimal. Also, these toilets have well-designed internal systems which are much more streamlined and easy to use.
Another great thing about these toilets is that there is a large variety of options to choose from, They are available in various shapes, sizes, colors, and even water consumption levels. So, you can easily find one that suits your bathroom and personal preferences.
How You Can Save Water
In modern toilets, it is possible to adjust how much water that a flush will use. It is important to remember that using too little water can leave toilet paper in the bowl, and can create stains or even clogs. Therefore finding the right balance is important. Some other ways you can contribute to saving water in this aspect are –
Use the half-flush option
If you have a toilet with a half and full flush option, make sure you use them correctly. Always using the full flush will waste excess water while doing the opposite might not use enough water for cleaning the toilet bowl. Thus, make sure you are using the right option when needed. This will ensure that you can keep your toilet clean while saving as much water as possible.
Press the flush all the way
Just like using the half flush all the time, pressing a single flush halfway down can end up using less water than needed. This is problematic because you might have to re-flush to get your toilet bowl fully clean. This not only wastes water but can also damage the internals of your toilet. So, always make sure to press the toilet flush down properly.
Fix any leaks or cracks
A leaking toilet is one of the worst things if you want to conserve water. Not only does it cost a lot of money to repair, but the leak can waste up to hundreds of liters of water every day. So, make sure to check for pools of water or dropping which can indicate leaks in your toilet. If you do find anything, get it checked out by a professional ASAP to ensure that you don’t damage your toilet further.
Conclusion
Even with the various newer kinds of toilets, your toilet is still one of the most water-consuming appliances in your house. That being said, this water consumption is necessary until we come up with other ways to get rid of our waste. The best thing you can do right now is to focus on minimizing your water wastage by using the right toilet the right way.
With that, we hope this article can help you understand the water usage of your toilet and how to reduce its overall water consumption.
We flush a toilet multiple times a day. If you can save some water each time, this can add up to a lot of water over a year. This can have a big impact on how much your water usage costs.
While toilets are often flushed with rain water, we should still make sure that we use this as efficiently as possible.
