American Standard Hits the Road

American Standard, one of the leading manufacturers of kitchen faucets, bathroom faucets, and shower heads has a 44 foot mobile showcase room where they are teaching people about water conservation.  They call it "The Responsible Bathroom Tour" and they are planning on visiting 300 locations this year in the U.S.

The American Standard Tour's goal is to raise awareness about how to conserve water.    The teaching and techniques they show will help a four-person family save almost 50,000 gallons of water each year.  Saving water is good for the environment, but some people might not see how saving water can reflect a significant dollar amount on their water bill.  At the TheKitchenFaucet.com, we're pretty confident people can see how saving that much HOT water can save on their electric bill though.

The tour is educating locals on some financial estimates of how much they can save with low flow bathroom fixtures.  Some water saving tips that will help the environment. As well as some demonstrations of their new water saving products.  Don Devine, American Standard CEO said "Our goal is to educate consumers that conservation can and does begin at home."

A Couple of New Faucet Inventions Include...

There are a couple of new techie devices for faucets that are pretty neat:

First we have the "Spring-Loaded Smart Faucet." (shown to the right here) It can attach to pretty much any tap.  You can leave the faucet handles open and the water doesn't run unless you are pressing on the slick chrome vertical bar over there.  This one might be a little over the top for saving money on water, but it can definitely help with hot water savings and what not.  It is basically an alternative for having the motion sensor to turn the water on.

Second, if you really want to work for your water, a designer named Harvey Bewley has come up with the "Twist Faucet" which is this one over to the left.  To get the water out of this thing you have to crank the knob.   It also has a digital read-out that shows how much water you are consuming as well as a water temperature gauge.  This is new age faucet is just a concept right now, so you can't really get this one in the store quite yet.  Still it is a neat idea, and I think temperature gauges are up and coming seeing as how the digital temperature is almost required for the new instant water heaters some  residence have starting installing in their homes.

Timed-rotary faucet adds to eco-friendly appeal.

      Turn this lavatory faucets retro rotary dial to 5, 10 or 15 seconds to manage how long the water flows from the spout.  Designer, Eun Ji Byeon developed this stylish polished metal design to make its users become eco-conscious and get a little joy out of new ways to conserve water when washing your hands.

      This is a cool alternative to the push-button water conservative faucets, in which you would never know how long the water will flow until you have to press it again.  Here you just turn the dial, just like an old-rotary phone, to the desired amount of seconds for the water to flow.  This faucet is great for residential applications where the the very expensive motion sensing faucets can not be used.

     There is an option on this new faucet to keep the water continually flowing, but the idea of being able to gauge how much (or how long) you need water to flow is very interesting.  In addition to a new timing mechanism for water flow, it also increases the user's awareness of how much water is needed to perform different tasks like washing hands or brushing teeth.