Christoph Lohr: Welcome to The Authority Podcast: Plumbing & Mechanical. When talking about the built environment, we would do well to remember: We shape our buildings, and afterwards, our buildings shape us. Therefore, on each episode we’ll discuss the latest trends from IAPMO in plumbing and mechanical safety, sustainability and resiliency. Join me, your host, Christoph Lohr, and together we’ll explore the ways we can make our buildings shape us for the better.
And welcome back to The Authority Podcast: Plumbing & Mechanical. And I'm your host, Christoph Lohr. On this episode, we’re going to be talking about celebrating the water efficiency success story of plumbing fixtures. In all the worthwhile discussions of advanced water-saving technologies, we often overlook the role of everyday plumbing fixtures — toilets, showerheads and faucets — in significantly reducing water use.
Since 2006, products labeled with U. S. EPA WaterSense have saved an astounding 8.7 trillion — with a t — gallons of water, and there is significant potential for additional water saving. In California, for instance, only 22% of toilets meet WaterSense standards, meaning California could save as much as 65 billion gallons of water over the next five years just by replacing existing products. In this product-focused episode, we also talk about emerging product innovations like reinvented toilets, smart flow detectors, and leak sensors, and the role of product standards and certifications in balancing innovation, public safety, and regulatory compliance.
And coming back to The Authority Podcast, joining me is Kerry Stackpole, CEO and executive director of Plumbing Manufacturers International, also known as PMI. Kerry, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.
Kerry Stackpole: Christoph, great to be with you.
Christoph Lohr: It is great to have you here. Well, let’s dive right in.
Let's set the stage for our listeners for the current situation with a bit of history. When did plumbing manufacturers’ interest in water efficiency begin?
Kerry Stackpole: Well, I think for a lot of manufacturers, it began when folks began to take notice of the environment in general, and more specifically, of course, when President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency in the early 1970s.
The challenge was, how do we protect the environment? And for some of your listeners, they may recall the Rachel Carson Silent Spring book, which talked about the use of various kinds of chemicals in the environment and their dangers. And that, I think, prompted people to begin to really think about how do we protect our environment and how do we look to, I’ll say, attend to the issues of water, water scarcity, making sure there were enough resources for everyone. And so you had the federal government starting to look at this issue and then of course the states began to follow along, and so by, I’m going to say probably the ’90s we were looking to bring together all of those various state regulations and really seek some harmonization.
It’s hard to produce — as you would understand, and I think your listeners do as well — you can’t produce one-off plumbing fixtures; it’s just not possible. I can’t have one type of toilet for you and a different type of toilet for somebody else if it isn't going to meet, I’ll call it, a unified standard.
So, long story short, by the 2000s, we were very much promoting and encouraging I’ll call it a national approach to water efficiency and water standards. And of course, that all gave breath and life to the WaterSense program, where we started out, I think, with about 40 fixtures and fittings, and now there’s literally 40,000 of those things.
That’s sort of the quick history, I’ll call it the quick summary.
Christoph Lohr: And the EPA WaterSense program, which certifies products. Do you know what the percentages for how much more water efficient those fixtures are versus federal standards?
Kerry Stackpole: Twenty percent is the range. So they’re 20% better than what the federal standards are, and in many cases, the WaterSense fixtures are in fact the state standards in many locations now, because they are so much more efficient.
Christoph Lohr: So with that efficiency, with that 20% additional efficiency, WaterSense-labeled products have saved, I think, the value that we saw in our research was 8.7 trillion gallons of water since 2006. But as I mentioned in the show introduction, only 22% of toilets in California meet those specifications. What can policymakers and building officials do to encourage broader adoption of WaterSense products?
Kerry Stackpole: I think part of it is, I’ll say making the case for the products.
We’ve talked with the folks in California about the idea of encouraging government to produce some sorts of incentives or other means to enable particularly disadvantaged individuals or I’ll say lower-cost housing environments where the occupants are most likely not as able to spend the kind of money that it takes to replace older fixtures with more efficient ones.
But we’ve made the case that not only do you save water, my whole thing is if I take out a 5-gallon flush toilet now and put in a 1.28-gallon flush — which is the California standard — right out of the box, by dinnertime I’m saving water. And if I’m saving water, then I’m also saving energy because it takes energy to move water. So it’s a win-win and we think state government would have a far better and more effective impact on water savings, and certainly impacts on droughts, by replacing fixtures versus lowering flows, which is another probably another whole subject for another conversation.
But our take here is that really policymakers need to be thinking about the most effective way to do this and, frankly, in California, where, to your point, more than 75% of the fixtures are not current to code. And they know that, I mean this isn’t a secret in California.
It would be a whole lot better to encourage people to do that through incentives or rebates or other forms that would help them move this process along. That’s what I would say.
Christoph Lohr: Excellent, excellent. So in your estimation, then, how can policymakers and building officials be confident that water-efficient fixtures will perform as promised?
Is there a point where water use can’t decrease without compromising performance?
Kerry Stackpole: In general, the answer is not really. Generally speaking, the, especially WaterSense-certified fixtures, are incredibly effective. They’re high performing, they are very water efficient and they work in a lot — I can’t say they work in all circumstances, because I think terrain certainly drives some of that and I think we’ve all had conversations with folks who their neighbor has a great product and it works really terrific, but for some reason doesn't work as terrific in the house next door, and when you start talking to folks elevation, where they’re located, some of those things impact plumbing.
There’s no question about it. But generally speaking, I think any of the WaterSense products, and frankly, most of the other products on the market now are focused on being high performing, being water efficient and being reliable. The average life of a water closet is something north of 30 years.
So on one hand, you can understand why people don’t rush to replace them. On the other hand, we really could save a lot of water if folks did.
Christoph Lohr: Looking at my notes here, so the emerging water conservation technologies such as reinvented toilets, smart flow detectors and leak sensors can advance water conservation as well.
What would your recommendation be on how can policymakers ensure that these innovations are also widely adopted?
Kerry Stackpole: Well, the great thing about water is that it reminds me a lot, and you’re going to laugh at this and maybe the listeners will find it amusing as well, but we all have a thermostat in our house, right? You go to the thermostat, you look at the thermostat, you see what the temperature is, you make the adjustments to make yourself comfortable. What we don’t keep track of is water use. And what if we had a dial like a thermostat somewhere in the house that showed you how much water you were using on a daily basis, whether it’s like a clock or like a little dial in the kitchen that would just show because folks, I don’t think, are aware of how much water they really use.
And I think for policymakers, the challenge is how do you encourage people to be water smart? Certainly the water monitoring systems, I think are amazing. I sat in a meeting recently where we were talking about this very issue and folks started pulling out their phones going, Oh yeah, I can see. I used 37 gallons of water this morning before I headed out for this meeting.
And so folks are becoming educated about the volume of water and how they’re using it, but it’s also one of those things that’s sort of behind the scenes because, it’s what people said about the old desk telephone, right? The only time you worried about an old, wired telephone was when you picked it up and there was no dial tone.
Water is very much like that. If you turn on the faucet and the water comes out and it looks clear and like it normally does, you’re kind of happy and you don’t think more about it. But when it comes out brown or when it doesn’t come out at all, that’s when it gets your attention.
And I think we’ve got to build a broader awareness among consumers and end users about just how much water they’re using.
Christoph Lohr: I like that actually. And I like that, I know there’s some devices coming to market where you can even get updates on your phone.
Kerry Stackpole: Absolutely.
Christoph Lohr: And so I think that awareness is definitely a part of it.
So when it comes then to the next step in this, which is the role for policymakers in supporting and adopting updates to codes and standards, is there a role for them in that process?
Kerry Stackpole: Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think the, again, governments can do more to alert consumers to sort of where they are in the water process and where they are in the water cycle.
You may have seen the Denver water utilities video. I think it’s a takeoff on an old band song, but they call it ‘We Water This Way.’ And it’s a takeoff on how to be more effective as a homeowner or as somebody who lives in an apartment in the way you use water, and I think there’s a real opportunity, frankly, for private public partnerships where we all start to alert our consumers, and in the case of politicians, our constituents, about the import and the importance of thinking about ways to monitor water use and see kind of where they're going, where they might be going astray.
For me, I think about ways in which plumbing manufacturers might be able to add features to their equipment, to the fixtures and fittings that are sold in the marketplace so people could be aware of water use. We gave away five-minute shower timers not so long ago as a way to build awareness of simplifying water use. You take a five-minute shower, you’re saving eight to 12 gallons of water from a normal shower. There’s ways to build awareness, and I think policymakers have a responsibility to kind of step up and say, ‘Hey, this is important. We want you to pay attention.’ And I think we’ve seen legislation, obviously, where folks are saying, ‘OK, you’re limited to 55 gallons of water use per day.
And that per capita use is going to be monitored and interestingly enough, though, in that setting, as it was laid out, it's not the individual who pays the penalty; it’s the water utility. So still, it’s an arm’s length awareness, and I think we’ve got to get much closer to the end user.
Christoph Lohr: I was going to say, as we were preparing for this, I think there was a note that I had about Canada supporting an advancement of CSA plumbing standards, talking about water temperature limiting devices. You want to touch on that at all, Kerry, in terms of helping prevent deaths in Canada caused by contact with hot water?
Kerry Stackpole: Yeah, it’s a great example. I think the number, I forget the, the number was amazing. It was something like 60% reduction or something in deaths from water. In the U.S. we’ve been very fortunate because we’ve had a number of inventions over the years that have mitigated that extreme water temperature. But that wasn’t the case in Canada and it wasn’t the case in the UK. And you kind of go, ‘Wait, wait, wait; scalding water? How’s that even possible?’ And in the U.S. we’ve done an amazing job, I think, of building those kinds of fixtures that don’t allow scalding and back off, but it’s still, I think, it’s one of those things, again, you don’t think about here necessarily, but in other places you do have to be careful and you do have to be a good, what’s the word, I guess a good consumer of the products in other places because you can get unexpected results. It isn’t to say you can’t burn yourself on hot water if you’re not careful and you don’t have your system integrated well, and that goes from temperatures and hot water tanks to proximity of bathrooms connected to where the hot water heater is located. There’s a lot of variables there, but thankfully, most of those have been engineered out of the system through codes and standards, the work IAPMO does and others, and also in the inventions and the innovations that the plumbing manufacturers have brought to market.
Christoph Lohr: Makes sense. So how do manufacturers then balance the public good of water conservation with the business imperative to innovate and differentiate products? What is the role of certification bodies in ensuring that both objectives are met?
Kerry Stackpole: Well, the beauty of certification bodies is that they put the products to test. That’s the ultimate vindication, if you will, of the quality of the product, the fact that the product is functioning as it’s supposed to, that the metals that it contains are not toxic and not harmful to citizens. Those are the components that I think that certification and lab testing bring to the industry, and I think by and large, our industry is excited to make sure that those products do pass muster. It’s funny when you go to visit with a plumbing manufacturer, I recall walking through a lab in one of the manufacturing facilities and there was water all over the floor, and I said, ‘Wow, this is, you guys got a lot of water here; what’s going on?’ And they said, ‘Well, we like it better when there’s water on the floor here than we do when it’s on the floor in your bathroom at home.’ The point being was they’re going to innovate, they’re going to test new ideas. They’re going to put those things, I’ll call it to the test.
But more importantly, they’re going to make sure before they ever get out of the manufacturing facility that they work right, they deliver the kinds of results people expect, they’re long lasting, and oh, by the way, yes, they can absolutely pass third-party testing and certification.
Christoph Lohr: Makes sense. Makes sense. What are the most common misconceptions policymakers and officials have about water-saving technologies?
Kerry Stackpole: Good question. I think there’s two parts to that, Christoph. One is they don’t necessarily understand building systems, so it’s seen more as individual components.
And I think to me, these days, the thing I see the most is somehow folks think that cranking down water flows is the best idea ever because you’ll save water, and it sounds like a good idea. Using less of anything always, somewhat, most of the time seems like a good idea, except, in my case, hot fudge and whipped cream; I want lots of that stuff. But when it comes to plumbing fixtures, folks think, ‘Oh, well, we’re going to turn down the flow.’ Here's the problem: turning down the flow in plumbing fixtures means there’s not as much outflow of water, which means that the infrastructures that we’ve laid out in our streets over the last centuries are probably not going to clear; and then you have the problem of inflows, where you have less water coming through the pipe system, which gives you an enormous opportunity for the creation of opportunistic pathogens. And we’ve seen this; I think the case that jumped out for a lot of people was Pittsburgh, the hotel in Pittsburgh that suddenly had Legionella and its water system in a hotel, which made enormous numbers of people sick.
We have the same experience in Flint, Michigan. Lowering the water flows, as I say, while it sounds sensible, actually leads to unintended consequences in other places. And so part of it is getting with policymakers to help them understand the impact of the bigger system. And we certainly don’t want to create systems where instead of a single flush, now people are flushing two and three times because they’ve had so little water in their water closets, or the showerheads aren’t putting out enough water so that people have to take longer showers. It’s kind of counterintuitive. You think, ‘Oh, well, you lower the flow, you save water, but lo and behold, folks spend more time using those fixtures and fittings because there isn’t enough flow. So our job is to really, as an industry, and I think as a profession, plumbers and everybody else, is to really help policymakers understand what happens when, if you’ve turned down the flow, here’s what happens. And as you may recall, some years ago, there were some plumbing efficiency research programs conducted, which demonstrated that pretty vividly. I know that the National Institute of Science and Technology is also looking at this in ways, so I think that part of it is getting the message out and also, like I say, helping folks understand it in a broad form.
Christoph Lohr: It’s interesting you bring that up, Kerry, because one of the things that comes to my mind is the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, they had a consensus report on the management of Legionella in premise plumbing systems and within the built environment. And they specifically had an item in there, the water age concern with lower-flow fixtures and health care facilities and long-term-care facilities, they actually said that those fixtures shouldn’t be used in those areas.
It’s interesting because I think that’s one of those areas that speaks to the fact, and I think you brought that up, is that thinking in systems — in terms of systems, not components — it’s a really hard skill, even for many engineers, let alone non-technical folks, policymakers that that that aren’t even trained in that to think that way, too.
So I think that’s a very, very important and astute point that you make there. So how do we get people there? Is maybe testing and certification kind of a way to help dispel those concerns, is our testing and certification a way to help make that, kind of work through that to make it a bit easier to think about?
Kerry Stackpole: I think that’s part of it. I also think there’s a really solid role to play in the codes and standards side of this. We have two, I really, I think this is fair, we have two major plumbing code bodies that are establishing codes and standards, and part of that to me is using those vehicles to educate policymakers and legislators on not only the need to adopt more quickly those policies and those codes and standards, but also to use those as teaching tools, because, and this is just my bias, I suppose. I’m not sure that if I’m a policymaker in government, I’m necessarily going to read the plumbing code.
I might. And maybe I have a responsibility to do it and I will, but if I’m a legislator, I’ve got a lot of things on my plate. I’ve got a lot of asks. I’ve got a lot of folks coming at me with different ideas. And so when somebody says, ‘We could really save 500 gallons of water a day if we did X,’ they’re not automatically thinking, ‘Well, wait a minute. X plus what we’re talking about in terms of lower flows is going to create a problem.’ And I think that’s where codes and standards, and frankly, that’s where the industry has to stand up. It's frankly one of the reasons we started Rethink Water at PMI, because the program, the idea here is we need to help educate folks about the system.
We have a building plumbing systems video that we’ve created for policymakers and legislators, which kind of walks us through what we’ve been talking about. We’re also working very diligently on making sure that we’re not encouraging or allowing what we call contraband or counterfeit products to arrive into the American market.
Consumers don’t necessarily know the difference between something that’s passed muster with a third-party certification and testing and something that looks the same but comes across the Amazon marketplace. And so we’re working there, again, to educate folks about the risks associated with that issue and then the longer, obviously, the longer term. And one of the initial efforts with Rethink Water was talking about really working on legacy product replacement. Because like I said, most of these products, I call it the ‘good news, bad news scenario,’ Christoph. The good news is the products last a really long time.
So your investment is a solid investment because you’re going to buy these products and they’re going to work for a really long time. The bad news about that is, as we get better and better and better at being more water efficient and offering the average consumer a more efficient product, the inclination to replace that,
Christoph Lohr: It’s gonna go down.
Kerry Stackpole: Well, it still works, right?
You’ve got a 5-gallon flush toilet that’s still working great. You don’t think anything of it. And so, yeah, our challenge is both educating policymakers but also educating consumers and remembering — and this is all, I know this all gets really down in the weeds — but it really is reminding them that there’s a water-energy nexus here that makes a difference.
And not only can we lower their water bills, but we can lower their electric bills and their energy bills by deploying these kinds of fittings and fixtures that are more water efficient than perhaps what they have currently.
Christoph Lohr: Excellent. How can policymakers stay informed about the advances in plumbing technology and standards to create legislation that not only encourages water savings, but also ensures product reliability?
Kerry Stackpole: Hmm. Yeah, interesting. I think we’ve touched on a lot of the ways that they can do it. I think that part of the process is really that public-private partnership approach. We’ve had great success in educating, I think, and working closely with policymakers at the Environmental Protection Agency.
We’ve worked closely with the California Energy Commission, the California Building Commission, we’ve worked with cities and counties all over the country. And I think the reality is that we all really want the same thing. We all want to make sure that consumers have great products, are able to save water, are able to save energy, and are able to maintain the health and safety of their homes, workplaces, government buildings.
We all pretty much want the same thing, and the good news is the industry — you, me, plumbers — we all are really in pursuit of the same thing. So getting folks to be willing to listen to each other, and we’ve had good success with that, where we’ve raised issues with local government or with the state government and said, ‘You know, you really need to take a closer look at this.’
And I think that that’s the process, in part. The other is, we all have to be out there advocating for our position. If you’re not visiting with your elected leaders, whether they’re in their home district or up on the hill in Washington or in your state capitals, you really are missing an opportunity to make the case for why they need to pay attention to the building systems and not just these what sound like a good solution, but really are going to create other problems.
Christoph Lohr: I like it, Kerry. I like it. So to wrap things up, if we were going to summarize our entire conversation here in one word, what would be the one word you would choose, and why?
Kerry Stackpole: One word. Yeah, boy, that’s a tough one. I was going to say rethink water, but that’s two words so that doesn't count. No, I think perhaps the word I’d grab is rethink. Maybe that’s the the one word I would encourage people to take away. And the reason is, we really do need to reconsider the ways we’ve been thinking about water.
And I get it. Water scarcity sounds ridiculous if you live in Chicago and you look out your window and you got this giant lake there. Doesn’t seem like you're missing any water at all. But if you’re in California in a non-rainy season or non-heavy snow season like they had last year, you’ve got drought.
And that’s a problem. And when cities are shutting off water to small communities because they fear running out of water for their larger community, we’ve got water problems; it’s not fake. Years ago, I worked on a project related to paper and forests, and I developed a mantra there because things were never what they seemed, and here it’s the same.
And that mantra was ‘Take a closer look,’ because when you take a closer look at water use and methods for reducing water use and things that you can do as a consumer and things you can do as a policymaker, the truth is, you really need to take a closer look and not go for the what appears to be the easiest solution.
Lowering a flow in a toilet isn’t really going to make a huge difference. Replacing a 5-gallon toilet with a 1.28-gallon toilet is going to make a huge difference today.
Christoph Lohr: Kerry, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your insights, your expertise with myself and our audience, and on behalf of The Authority Podcast: Plumbing & Mechanical and IAPMO, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today.
Kerry Stackpole: Happy to do it, Christoph; always great to see you.
Christoph Lohr: Always good to see you too.
Kerry Stackpole: Thanks, take care.
