How To Greenify Your Plumbing In 2021
The 21st century has come laden with new challenges for homeowners. From affordability and availability to building a brand new; versus buying and renovating — there are so many considerations to make. One of these considerations should be the environment. Retrofitting an old home in an environmentally-friendly way is much more expensive and time-consuming than building that way to start with. 
Here are some ideas for how you can incorporate a clean vision for the future into your new home’s plumbing system, thanks to green plumbing.
Install a dual-flush toilet
Dual-flush toilets are the kinds of things you’re likely to see at your local shopping center. These are the toilets of the future. They operate on a two-flush system, designed to save water. The first flush (sometimes demarcated by a half-blacked out semi-circle), is designed for liquid waste and uses 3 liters of water per flush, whereas the second flush (demarcated by a fully blacked-out circle) uses only 4.5 liters of water.
These standards are actually Australian law when it comes to the production of dual-flush systems. It has also been noted that the average user saves up to 32,000 liters of water every year. That’s both saving the planet with a zero-waste mindset and saving your wallet!
Go tankless
Most people aren’t even aware that this is an option, but it is! Build your new home with an on-demand, tankless hot water heater. There are many benefits to going tankless, but it all starts with size. Because tankless heaters provide water on-demand, they don’t require you to buy a large cylinder to store your water in.
It also means you never run out of hot water and the lifespan of a tankless hot water heater is up to twice as long as your traditional tank-type heater, due to the decreased risk of corrosion and rust. They come in two types, gas or electric.
Consider your piping
Your pipes aren’t typically something you think about as a homeowner, and there’s a good chance that if you are thinking about them, there’s something wrong. Now you’re building your own home, you’re faced with the choice of what to do for your piping for water, waste, and so on.
You have two options copper or PVC; both of which are now highly recycled within the industries that produce them. There are steps you can take to make sure that the water you’re pumping through those pipes goes as far as possible. Including insulating the pipes with pipe wrap. This can save heat loss in water by up to 80%, which means it costs you less to heat water that stays almost at the same temperature. As such, your net loss is reduced. There are also ways to recycle your greywater, which is another eternal benefit for the benefit.
Install low-flow showerheads and faucets 
Love a steaming hot shower? Fear not, they don’t go away with the installation of low-flow showerheads. The point of installing a low-flow showerhead or faucet is to reduce the amount of water you’re using. Currently, most traditional showerheads will use up to 9.5 liters of water per minute. Measuring this out into a container of some sort will help you visualize just how much water that is, it’s pretty astonishing. It is said that low-flow showerheads consume up to 60% less water per month. This equates to roughly 15,000 liters of water per month being saved, which means that the initial expense of installing low-flow will pay for itself within six months.
Whatever your vision is for your new home, aligning with a vision of a greener future for yourself and your children can only be a good thing. Aside from your plumbing concerns, there are so many other things you can do inside your home to help, in some small way, to save the planet. Whether that’s installing motion-sensor timed light switches, or putting up a solar panel or two, or even just making sure to recycle your recyclables. The idea is that if enough dual-flush toilets and low-flow showerheads are installed in enough homes, then collectively, we can make a huge difference in prolonging the life of our planet.