Overall Costs Ease the Restroom Fixture Purchase Process

Plumbing professionals can help make or break the public restroom experience-as well as a facility's operating and maintenance costs-with plumbing fixture choices.

By Peter Jahrling,

Director of Engineering, Sloan Valve Co.

Conservation for the sake of conservation doesn't fly with facility owners and operators. You can't blame them -- no one wants to willingly waste water or energy. But, there have to be more benefits to implementing environmentally friendly measures in the restroom than just conservation to make it

worthwhile for most.

Fortunately, there are plenty of advantages to designing a public restroom with water- and energy-efficient fixtures.

Long-Term Costs

It is often tempting to purchase a plumbing fixture based solely on cost. However, it's worth your time to consider the lifecycle cost of the fixture. The lifecycle cost incorporates all the costs associated with operating and maintaining that fixture for the duration of its lifetime.

When looking at fixture cost alone on a manufacturer's price sheet, the cost of sensor-operated models can jump out compared to manual fixtures. And, it may appear that you're getting a good deal based on the initial cost alone.

But lifecycle costs can turn those upfront savings upside down.

Consider faucets, for example. The initial cost of a manual faucet may be a fraction of the price of a sensor-operated faucet. The low price can be an attractive selling point for a cash-strapped project. The problem with that rationale, however, is that it's rather shortsighted. Facility personnel can waste a lot of valuable time servicing manual faucets that are more prone to break because of constant user handling and abuse. Maintenance professionals, who are, unfortunately, quite familiar with making these service calls, may even have to switch out cheaply made manual faucets every year or so because of the faucets shorter lifecycles.

Whether rough handling comes from users who intend to cause trouble or from users who simply exert too much force on fixture handles or push buttons, the results are the same - costly, or irreparable damage. However, because sensor-operated plumbing fictures - ranging from faucets and Flushometers to restroom accessories such as hand dryers and soap dispensers - are touchless by design, they're not subject to abuse.

Battery-powered sensor-operated plumbing fixtures, of course, need to have their batteries changed regularly. Batteries typically last for a few months to years, depending on how often they're used and the uality of the design. LEDs and other diagnostics on sensor fixtures automatically alert maintenance personnel to when batteries need to be replaced or when these fixtures require other types of service. These diagnostics help personnel attend to service issues promptly, while avoiding time wasted on checking fixtures unnecessarily.

Operating Costs Make a Difference

Although minimizing service calls and their associated maintenance costs may be most important to maintenance personnel, facility operators should consider long-term operating costs as well. The most-expensive operating lifecycle cost for plumbing fixtures has relates to how much water it consumes.

Let's look at sensor-operated faucets again. Sensor faucets are designed to operate for a pre-set

amount of time when a user's hands are in the active area, which triggers the sensor to allow water flow.

A sensor-operated faucet uses approximately 1 gallon less water than a manual faucet, which in a public restroom, continues to flow while a person lathers and dries their hands.

In contrast, sensor-operated faucets turn off during this stage. More water can be saved when sensor faucets automatically switch off as soon as users remove their hands from the wash area, as opposed to metered and other types of manual faucets that can be left running for extended cycles, sometimes even after users leave the restroom.

These water savings over the faucet's lifetime reduce a facility's water and wastewater expenses. As companies struggle to contain operating costs, or face pressure to reduce overall water usage in water-scarce regions, water reduction from faucets makes sense in the long run.

The water flow rate of sensor-operated faucets also warrants a closer look. The typical public restroom faucet operates at the standard rate of 2.2 gallons of water per minute. Faucets running at 2.2 gpm are considered to be "low flow," especially when compared to earlier generations of faucets that operated with as much as 5 to 7 gallons of water per minute.

While a 2.2-gpm flow rate makes sense in foodservice kitchen or health care applications, where a stronger flow is necessary to properly cleanse foods or equipment, for example, faucets in public restrooms can operate effectively on much less water. In fact, newer faucets with 0.5-gpm aerators can hygienically and efficiently wash hands in public restrooms and other areas in a commercial or institutional facility with basic hand-washing stations.

Facilities have nothing to lose and everything to gain by installing faucets with 0.5-gpm aerators in their public restrooms-and the gains are primarily in cost savings. The water and sewer costs associated with operating a 2.2-gpm faucet can run as much as four times higher than a 0.5-gpm faucet over the course of a year (see chart "Low-Flow Faucets vs. Low-Flow Faucets with Aerators.")

These utility cost savings bring a rapid return on investment to 0.5-gpm installations, especially for those facilities that install several faucets in a single restroom or retrofit restrooms throughout a facility with these ultra-water-efficient models.

Faucets with 0.5-gpm aerators are typically sensor operated and are available with tempered or hot/cold water operation. Although most sensor-operated faucets are powered either by batteries or plug-in transformers, new solar-powered, 0.5-gpm faucets that run off any natural or artificial restroom light source enable facilities to conserve both water and energy.

Facilities also have many choices when it comes to flushing technologies. Water consumption plays as strong a role in minimizing operating costs with these fixtures as they do with faucets.

Toilets are now mandated to use no more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush, and the good news for facilities personnel is that today's flushing technologies can operate very effectively at 1.6 gpf-or even less. Manufacturers have come a long way with their flushing technologies and have demonstrated that it's fixture design, not the amount of water used to flush, that determines flush effectiveness.

Nowadays, commercial, institutional and industrial facilities have a wide range of water closet and urinal technology choices, which run the gamut from the standard 1.6-gpf water closet models through dual-flushing devices, to waterfree urinals that use absolutely no water to operate. High-efficiency toilets (HETs) or fractional-flush technologies are becoming more popular, driven mostly by individual municipalities and water districts in water-scarce regions that are adopting stricter water conservation measures and offering rebates to businesses and homeowners willing to install HETs and other water-saving fixtures.

Businesses shouldn't wait for official regulations to make the most of these ultra-water-conserving technologies, however. Plumbing fixtures such as 1.0-gpf pressure-assist toilets, 1.28-gpf commercial water closets, 0.5-gpf urinals and dual-flush Flushometers, which give users the option of using only half as much water as a regular flush, enable facilities to conserve costly water without making any drastic or undesirable changes in technologies.

Some of these options, such as pressure-assist and waterfree urinals, do call for complete fixture changeovers, whereas dual-flush technologies, sensor-operated flushing and lower-consumption Flushometers may be available as retrofit kits for converting existing manual fixtures.

Energy Costs Matter, Too

Facility owners are also more closely scrutinizing their energy costs and ways to contain them as bills for all types of energy sources continue to rise, sometimes at sharp rates. Here, too, facilities would be wise to look at operating costs versus just initial costs when purchasing energy-consuming fixtures.

Just as with faucets, the cost of sensor-operated hand dryers may appear prohibitive compared to manual hand dryers. Energy-efficient, sensor-operated hand dryers, however, use about 80% less energy than conventional models, while appealing to users who appreciate the convenience of having their hands completely dried in seconds.

Additionally, hand dryers eliminate the ongoing cost of purchasing paper towels, as well as other expenses incurred in storing them, refilling dispensers and cleaning up paper towel waste. Replacing paper towels with sensor hand dryers may also be a good idea for vandal-prone restrooms where users are tempted to use towels to intentionally clog sink drains or toilets.

Give Users What They Want-and Need

Keeping costs down may be one of the most, if not the most, important decision-making factors for facility operators who are purchasing plumbing fixtures, but there are plenty of other considerations. Hygiene, building/business image and convenience should also take their rightful places in the purchase process.

Consumers are becoming and more aware and conscientious about the need to wash their hands to keep themselves healthy. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hygienic hand-washing is the single-most effective measure for preventing the spread of pathogens that can cause everything from the common cold to more serious, even life-threatening, diseases.

Proper hand-washing is critical to reduce the transmission of pathogens to food, water, other people and inanimate objects, such as door knobs, hand railings and other surfaces. By installing electronically operated, touchless water closet and urinal Flushometers, restroom visitors can avoid touching potentially contaminated fixture handles.

Having sensor-operated faucets, soap dispensers and hand dryers keeps the hand-washing process as hygienic as possible, while reducing the chances of cross-contamination, which undoes the good of washing in the first place. For example, cross-contamination occurs when newly washed hands touch dirty faucet handles to turn off the water or when someone activates a manual hand dryer. Lack of hygienic hand-washing can result in countless hours of lost productivity and sick days in a workplace or educational facility.

Public restroom visitors have higher expectations nowadays for restroom appearance, and that means much more than just the décor. When consumers talk about restroom appearance, what they're usually referring to is cleanliness. While consumers may not know the details of all the potential pathogens lurking in the restroom, they are very sensitive to how inviting a restroom is to them as visitors. A restroom user can overlook a few sheets of toilet paper that have fallen to the floor, but has greater difficulty with having to actually come into contact with surfaces that have been touched by untold numbers of previous visitors.

Electronic plumbing fixtures go a long way toward relieving restroom visitors' angst by greatly minimizing the number of potential touch points in the restroom and increasing hospitality with convenient, easy-to-use operation. An environment that makes users feel more comfortable about visiting the restroom also says a lot about the building or business itself, which can boost image and visitors' overall satisfaction with their rating of that facility.

From a plumbing perspective, choosing restroom fixtures is not the slam-dunk decision it used to be. There are many more choices in technologies and fixtures than ever before, and the sheer breadth of options can be daunting.

Plumbing professionals would do well, however, to educate themselves on these options so they in turn can educate facility owners and operators about their fixture choices. Armed with this important knowledge, professionals can ensure that their public restroom fixtures make significant and positive changes in facility operating and maintenance costs, while improving the restroom visit for all users.

Peter Jahrling is the director of d\esign engineering for Sloan Valve Co. and has been employed with Sloan for more than 25 years. He earned a B.S. and an M.S. in engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and is a member of the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute. Jahrling has been a contributor to many industry trade publications during his career and holds numerous patents. He can be reached at sloanengineer@interlinegroup.com.