All About High Efficiency Toilets (HETs)

Toilets are by far the main source of water use in the home, accounting for nearly 30 percent of an average home’s indoor water consumption. Older, inefficient toilets also happen to be a major source of wasted water in many homes. Replacing these toilets with WaterSense labeled toilets could save nearly 2 billion gallons per day across the country—that’s nearly 11 gallons per toilet in your home every day! By retrofitting your entire bathroom with WaterSense labeled fixtures from us, you can save even more.
What Are High-Efficiency Toilets?
Under U.S. Federal law, new toilets must not use more than 1.6 gallons per flush (gpf). High-efficiency toilets (HETs) go beyond the standard and use 1.28 gpf, a 20% savings (6 liters v. 4.8 liters).  The WaterSense label can be applied to HETs that are certified by an independent testing laboratory to meet strict criteria for both performance and efficiency. HETs must complete the third-party certification process to earn the right to bear the WaterSense label.
Do High Efficiency Toilets Work?
Everyone is concerned about the performance of low-flow toilets. Do they clear the bowl and leave it clean? Do they stop up frequently? Unlike the first 1.6 gpf toilets, WaterSense HETs combine high efficiency with high performance. Advances in toilet design permit WaterSense HETs to save water without loss of flushing power. Many HETs actually perform better than standard toilets, a testament to the use of computers to design them rather than the trial-and-error guesswork of earlier designs.
How Much Water and Money Do HETs Save?
High efficiency toilets save you money by reducing your water and wastewater costs. Over the course of a lifetime, an average person flushes the toilet nearly 140,000 times. If you install a WaterSense HET, you can save 4,000 gallons per year and your children can each save about a third of a million gallons during their lifetime. If a family of four replaces one 3.5 gpf toilet made between 1980 and 1994 with a WaterSense toilet, they can save $2,000 over the lifetime of the toilet. If the toilet being replaced was made before 1980, it uses 5 gallons per flush so the savings will be much greater.
Select a WaterSense Labeled High-Efficiency Toilet!
Whether you are remodeling a bathroom, beginning construction of a new house, or just want to replace an old, leaky toilet, a WaterSense labeled HET from us is your best bet.  If every home in the United States replaced just one old toilet with a new HET, we would save almost one trillion (spelled with a T) gallons of water per year, equal to more than two weeks of the water flowing over Niagara Falls!