Create Your Own Water Displacement System to Save Energy and Money

We’re all looking for ways to save energy around the house and reducing your home’s water consumption is one easy way to do this. A simple project for reducing your home’s water usage is to convert any toilet to a low flush toilet.

There are a few different ways that you can make this project work in your home. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to complete and uses products that you likely already have laying around!

Our project is based on the concept of water displacement in your toilet tank. By placing an adequate object in your toilet’s tank, you can displace a large amount of water. Displacing water reduces the amount of water required to power your toilet with each flush. Therefore, your water displacement device will save you water and energy every single time you flush your toilet!

There are a few different water displacement rigs that you can easily create, using materials you probably already have on hand. This how-to from Don’t Waste the Crumbs explains how you can fill empty water bottles with sand—ideally three bottles in total. You can also sub out water bottles with a half-gallon container, like one you would get laundry detergent, fabric softener, or dishwashing liquid in. If you don’t have any sand, you can replace it with pebbles or gravel. You can even add water if it isn’t quite heavy enough, but don’t only fill it with water, as it will move around in your tank.

Once you have created your water displacement objects, installation is as simple as placing them in your toilet tanks. Be careful to leave all of the plumbing fixtures in place in your toilet tank when you do the installation, as you don’t want to break anything!

How you’ll save depends entirely on how much water you can displace, and on how many toilets are in your home and use. How much you have to pay for water will also be a factor. Regardless, these small amounts of savings will add up over time and save you energy in the long run. When you compare this to the very small amount of time and energy required to install your water displacement units, you’re in for some serious savings!

Click here to view other Bright Insights blog posts that have great energy efficiency advice!