Last week I attended the PCBC Exhibition in San Francisco. This year there are more exhibitors and attendees than last year, which is good. Many products have been shown before, but two caught my eyes as particularly useful to help conserve water.
The first were faucets with sensors. These products have been used widely in commercial building for many years but it wasn’t until recently that residential products came out. Delta and Moen both showcased these products.
Besides a handle for manual control, Delta’s kitchen faucets are designed that you can turn the faucet on and off by touching with any part of hand or arm. If your hands are greasy, you can activate flow by touching your arm on the faucet. A temporary flow rates increase can be achieved by a second touch. Moen’s kitchen faucet can turn on or off flow with simple of hand movements in close proximity of the faucet. Once your hand goes under the faucet the water would flow. As soon as you take away your hand it shuts off. Or you can turn it off manually. Delta’s models are battery (AA) operated only. Moen’s are either battery operated or via an AC adaptor to be plugged into an outlet in the cabinet under the sink. They both cost about $600, not cheap. But they save water. Both companies also make sensor bathroom faucets at lower prices.
The Delta products are already available in home center stores. The Moen ones will be on the market by August 2012. Expect other manufacturers to follow the trend with new sensor products too. Nowadays, with the drought going on around the country and further water shortage looming, water saving products are worth thinking about it.
The second product was the Rainbird subsurface drip irrigation system for lawns and other landscaping purposes. They’ve been around for a few years but I just paid more attention to it this year. It’s a small tube with small holes and a small piece of copper inside the tube right next to each of the small holes. I was worried that soil or roots can plug many of the small holes and thus rendering irrigation uneven or ineffective. According to the representative, the soil would get compacted quickly after it’s wet. The small pieces of copper create oxides that kill the grass roots if they get into the holes to avoid getting plugged up.
A landscape contractor standing near us from Sacramento said he installed the same system five years ago on his yard with a strip of grass and it works really well without any problems. He likes it because the water only goes to the root system under the surface and not wasted by running down the street.
It sounds like a good system. I’ll consider using it seriously when I redo my landscape.
I love the touch-activated faucet! The sprinkler tubing with copper? Not so much. Driving copper stakes into the ground is one way to kill a tree. Even though this sprinkler tubing might release tiny amounts of copper, it could cause unintended consequences.
With the tiny amount of copper, the idea is to localize the effect. As any new things it will take time to confirm how it will work.