Flushing the toilet is something that most people do automatically without putting too much thought into it; in fact if we don’t flush it is often frowned upon.
But given that the average Brit flushes the toilet five times per day and that older toilets can use up to 9 litres of water per flush, perhaps this is something both businesses and individual ‘flushers’ should be taking more notice of.
One of the often untapped areas for savings in the washroom environment is the water management of the flush water running through gents urinals.
On average, £860 of water flows through a single urinal per year and the simple fitting of a water management unit can reduce this by up to 85%. The Vectair Sensaflush® unit, which is backed by The Environment Agency and the National Trust, is saving businesses hundreds of pounds a year per urinal.
Multiply this saving by several urinal cisterns and you could be on to a saving of thousands per year. This urinal flush management system has been designed to drastically reduce your water consumption through eradicating unnecessary and expensive water wastage.
The programmable and highly versatile system differentiates between “active” and “idle” periods in the washroom and only flushes when motion is detected and a flush is needed.
If detection does not occur within a 12 hour period, the unit automatically provides a sanitising flush, meaning further water can be saved.
A good example of where Sensaflush® has been used to full effect, is at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, in Blackburn Lancashire, one of the leading co-educational independent day schools in the North West. It has a high footfall of children and staff on a daily basis during term time.
The school’s Estates Manager at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar Independent School, Brian Sheard, contacted Harvey Environmental as they had no water control measures fitted, yet he knew that they could be saving money if they did. All nine of the toilets were flushing a 10ltr cistern every 10 to 15 minutes and water was still flowing through the urinals even when the washrooms were not being used – after school, at the weekends and in non- term times.
As water is a very expensive commodity, this was an unnecessary waste of school funds as well as a huge cost to the environment, and they needed to make sure that the waste created by using water was minimised.
Harvey Environmental advised the school to install Sensaflush® and willing to give it a try, the units were installed; to instant effect.
The savings achieved in the first year of fitting Sensaflush® were around £15,000, and the school’s monthly direct debits were reduced accordingly. After 6 months into the second year of using Sensaflush® the school also received another £2.5k refund from their water supplier as they were still paying too much.
Sheard said: “I am an experienced facilities manager and as so, I am obviously aware of the savings that can be made on fitting water management systems into school buildings.
“The school installed Sensaflush® units and we have found these to be brilliant. The unit sits above the cistern and is really easy to install. The product enables the reduction of water by reducing needless flushing whilst the washrooms are not being used. “I would recommend using the Sensaflush® Urinal Flush Management System in any building to maximise on both saving money and helping the environment.”
Want to work out if your money is going down the drain? It’s this easy:
Cistern size: 10 litres
Flush frequency/hour: 4
Litres/hour: 40
Litres/24 hour day: 960
Litres/365 day year: 350400
Cost per 1000 litres: £2.46
Water cost: £860.92
85% saving using Sensaflush®: £731.78
Multiply this saving on just one urinal cistern for example in an office block with 10 gents toilets and 10 cisterns and you could be looking at some massive savings every year.
