And the winner of the giveaway is…..Megan! She helps the environment by working PR at a
water utility company, teaching customers about water conservation.
I hope you enjoy your new Duo Flush System!
Okay, guys and gals – Let’s get real about the bathroom. Before you start letting your imagination run wild, breathe – I’m just talking water, specifically water conservation.
When chatting about water conservation, my first thought is usually the shower. I’m an early morning, first-thing shower taker, and it’s pretty much my version of a cup of coffee – Without a nice hot shower in the a.m. right after rolling out of bed, I’m equivalent to your run-of-the-mill, screechy-violins-in-the-background monster. In an attempt to conserve our water usage though, I’ve done my best to put myself on a time limit in my showers and so far, it’s been working. But I knew there was something more I could be doing…
Sometime last year, I stumbled upon a blog talking about a modern convenience that really got my mental gears working – The couple in question had installed a dual flushing system on their bathroom toilet. For those of you not familiar (although in this green day and age, I’d bet my bottom dollar you know what I’m talking about), a dual flushing system allows potty users to choose between a half flush and a full flush.
There’s definitely something to this invention. Makes sense right? Why waste a ton of water when sometimes all you need is a gentle surge to take care of (your) business? To get to the point, I’ve been pondering adding just such a system to our home for a while now.
Enter the miracle email.
A few months ago, I was approached via email by a public relations and social media rep from Fluidmaster. Yup – You guessed it. They make the very Duo Flush product that I had been pining over! To make things all the more exciting, they offered me my very own to test drive on our loo.
*DISCLAIMER: Yes, I received free product in exchange for a review on my blog – But I am giving you my “real life” opinion here today. I only accept products that we’ve been in the market for in the past and insist on an extra added benefit for you, my faithful reader. Hint: It’s spelled g-i-v-e-a-w-a-y. We’ll get to that in a moment…
After chatting with the rep, I learned more than I ever thought I would about toilets. According to their stats, the Duo Flush system has the power to save 50% more water with every flush. For green penny-savers like us, this thought was more than appealing.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and this lovely little box was carried up to our master bathroom and immediately ripped open.
Just as I was told, the process of installation was as simple as can be. I’ll admit that the plethora of unfamiliar plumbing parts was a little daunting at first, but between the really thorough instructions complete with pictures for visual learners like myself and color-coded/labeled parts, we were able to motor through without a single incident.
To begin, I was told via the paper instructions to identify my “flush valve seat.” Thank goodness for the the photos…I was able to glance back and forth between our existing hardware and the pictures of the possibilities on the instructions to easily deduce that we had an angled seat. Based on my findings, I was told to find the yellow bag labeled “B” and follow the instructions there.
Yellow bag labeled “B”:
It really was that simple, especially for people like me who have never done any kind of plumbing in their lives…Although the part inside bag “B” was alien to me, there were plenty of directions and even a little arrow to point me in the right direction (as seen on the bottom of the part below, angled toward south east).
After installing the adaptor part (that grey rim pictured above was super sticky and pliable, and I just pushed it right into place as directed), it was time to get rid of the old parts and make way for the new – Namely the Duo Flush Valve and the PerforMAX Fill Valve. Both were again accompanied by thorough instructions on installation, and even more arrows to really make sure I couldn’t screw things up.
After about five minutes, our toilet tank was looking pretty fancy and techy. I almost WISH that I could say we had a rough time with it because this post is sounding more and more like a bonafide infomercial for the product, but it really was THAT SIMPLE.
To program the half flush and full flush, we were told to set both dials to MAX. Then we were directed to toss three squares of toilet paper into the potty and flush. If the toilet paper went down, we needed to turn the dial down a notch. We repeated the experiment a few times until it didn’t go down anymore (i.e. we had reached the minimum water flow needed to get the job done). In the end I think we got the half flush down to the MIN marker and the full flush one above that.
Oh, and check out our cool new flusher handle! Pull up for half flush and down for full.
You can hardly tell we did anything, but under that tank is a pretty darn sophisticated system to help us save money on water and help save resources for the environment. Can’t go wrong with that!
Now having had the system in place for about a week, I can safely say that it’s pretty cool – No leaks (which means we must have succeeding in our install) and the flusher is working like a charm. The only thing that’s taken some getting used to is remembering that there are now two different ways to flush. We’ll get there.
Now for the giveaway…
Want to snag your very own Fluidmaster Duo Flusher system? Here’s your chance:
To enter:
Leave a comment on this post telling me YOUR favorite way to conserve, may it be water, energy or any other resource/material. (Don’t forget to include an email address in the form so I can contact you!)
Bonus entry:
For extra chances to win the prize, follow DreamGreenDIY on Facebook and/or Twitter and leave another comment here letting me know you did. (it’s a win-win since you’ll be able to keep up with my daily updates once you’re a follower – But of course, there’s NO pressure to do so. You don’t need to do this in order to win the prize)
Deadline:
You have until Monday, July 23 at 11:59 p.m. to enter. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, July 25th – Don’t forget to check back to see if you’ve won.
Nitty gritty:
Prize ships only within the U.S.A. (sorry international readers!!!!). The winner will be selected using random.org.
Good luck!
