Common Ground
A homeowner in Waukesha for 20 years, Steve is president of the Waukesha Dog Parks Organization and enjoys motorcycling, fishing and staying on top of politics.
Water Saving Remodel
Our home was built in the 1960's, I believe. I would like to have seen it when it was finished. I know it has been remodeled at least once since then before we bought it. Now after over 20 years of ownership, we remodeled the bathroom and a little of the kitchen. Also, after 38 years of marriage and two washing machines, we bought a high tech front loading washing machine. Our second washer, a Kenmore, as was our first, was still working but some things showed deterioration and I try not to wait till things fail entirely. To protect all of this from hard water minerals, we also installed a new water softener.
A result of all of these purchases was a little shot of money into the economy and hopefully helping some people in their job security along the way. Labor was obtained from within the county. Most materials were purchased from a big box store, but it is headquartered in the state and many of their stores, including the one locally, have heating and air conditioning equipment bought from the company that I work for.
Another result of the purchases is a significant decrease in our water usage. In our shower, I thought that we previously had a stingy shower head, but the new one is even better but still does the job well. The toilet is the new 1.8 gallon per flush type and works better than the old toilet that used much more water but seemed to swirl gallons of water while doing it's job poorly.
The star of the water saving show is our new front loading washer. This thing is super stingy! Besides using a whole lot less water, the motor running the show is electronically controlled as is the blower motor in our ultra-high efficiency furnace. The energy usage tag says that it will use around $10 of gas and electricity in a years time! The prices for gas and electricity for comparison are in line with what we are currently paying WE Energies. Amazing. We can now stuff the queen bed comforter in it rather than a trip to the laundromat and $5 in quarters. Where our old washer would drain and nearly fill the wash tub, the new machine doesn't even raise an inch off of the bottom of the tub with drain water.
Lastly the new water softener. This is the third one that we've had. That's not counting the second one that was replaced by the company because they couldn't fix the timer mechanism. I had stopped using that one for several years as I got tired of hauling 80 pound bags of salt down the stairs. The regeneration took a couple hours and the Lord only knows how much water was being flushed down the drain! But with the new fixtures and such, we wanted to protect them from minerals so I shopped around for a new one. This, of course, regenerates as needed. The sales material spoke of regenerations taking only 15 to 20 minutes and much reduced usage of salt. The machine only holds a little more than 60 or 70 pounds. It's been more than a month with it and the salt hasn't even dropped down half way! When I hear it regenerate, it is indeed only a few minutes, yet we have the slippery sensation of soft water when we lather up so we know that it is working. Also our portable humidifier no long has mineral build-up.
So when that quarterly water bill comes in the mail, I expect to be pleasantly surprised.
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