Walk in Showers

Showers are more custom than any other bathroom feature. They are more technical, and require more decision making than any other area in the bathroom. There is no end to layouts and what you can do in the shower, but I want to cover a few trends and once again show some inspiring layouts and designs.

There has been and continues to be a trend toward clear glass and frame-less enclosures. Larger space allowing for walk in showers is also on the rise. With several companies coming out with new drains, and our desire to think ahead more, I am predicting an increase of cleaner, barrier free showers where there is no threshold to walk over when entering.

To accommodate these trends, we need to search out new enclosures that take advantage and enhance these design ideas. Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with and see for myself, a line of shower enclosures from Italy called Elysium. I am happy to report that I liked these enclosures so much, that Union Hardware has made a commitment to this line, and we will be the exclusive distributor of the Elysium line in the Washington DC metro area. Over the next few months, both of our showrooms will be installing these products.

As pictures are worth a thousand words, I hope you enjoy these fresh designs as much as I have.

This is my favorite: The Sparkle. Look at this picture, the layout, the background, the view out the windows. The Sparkle shower screen includes 20 LED lights within the glass to create a sparkling light with no wires showing. We will have this on display in our Bethesda location beginning June/July. (click on it for a larger view)

The Extra is also something that is noteworthy. The curved glass allows the user to have a larger shower space with shorter side walls.

The Sun on the left, available in this walk in shower is also unique. The curved part of the glass is hinged to enclose the space more if desired.

I have only discussed walk in shower screens in this posting. The Elysium Line has a lot of great doors that we will be displaying. They also have a great looking glass tub worth seeing.

I invite you to visit their great website and look at some of their other inspiring products.

Toilets - A trend gone awry

Here's a trend that I believe is ridiculously overrated. Just another political game, and a disservice to our customers. I have no problem conserving non-renewable resources such as fossil fuel. In fact, I have no problem with most environmental friendly concepts. However, I do have several issues with flushing less water in our toilets and calling this helpful, significant or water conservation.

California passed a law requiring that half the toilets being sold there have to be 1.28 gal/flush vs. 1.6 gal/flush. Manufactures are jumping on this "Eco" bandwagon and discontinuing 1.6 gal/flush in favor of 1.2 gal/flush.

Putting Things in Perspective

Approximate Water Usage World Wide:
70% of water usage is in agricultural irrigation (about 85% in USA).

23% usage is industrial

7% domestic use.

An entire subdivision would use around 8,000 gallons per day.

A small 100 acre farm (the size of a small subdivision) could use 230,000 gallons per day.

A 3% reduction in water usage for a small farm would be more significant than an entire subdivision converting everything in the home to the new standard.

Drip irrigation has been around for a very long time and was modernized in Israel in the 60's. If used it would save 50% of the water farmers use to grow crops.

A single minute variance in showering time with a single shower head putting out 2.5 gal/minute would be a bigger variance than changing toilets from 1.6 to 1.28 gal/flush.

If the government or environmentalists felt that there was a real problem, why approach it on a front that has great public awareness, but virtually no effect.

A Closed System

We have approximately the same amount of water as we had 1,000 years ago, and 10,000 before that.

When we flush a toilet, we are not using water, we are moving it and recycling it. Hence, I have a problem with the thought that flushing less water is water conservation. If I drink less or more water, is that conservation? (same thing just a smaller system.)

Effectiveness

The same toilet flushing 1.28 vs.1.6 gal/flush looses approximately 25% of its ability to clear a bowl.

When people ask us “what is the best toilet?” I believe they are asking first and foremost, which one is least likely to clog, overflow or needs to be flushed twice.

There is no question that there is a trend to reduce the amount of water per flush. There is also no question that the less water available to push waste out and down the sewer lines, the harder it is to achieve that goal. I am concerned that my customers won't be happy with a lesser product that has no real benefit.

For these reasons, I think that this is our industries’, "bridge to no-where". I am not proud.

So, what can we do? At Union Hardware, we recommend toilets by the numbers.

Starting in 2003, there has been consistent independent testing done on over 1,200 toilet models to rate there maximum performance. This is called the MaP test. (Ma)ximum (P)erformance test. The test results are released several times a year. The highest rating that is tested for is 1,000 grams clearing the bowl and trap.

When a customer asks us "what are the best toilets?" very simply, they have to hit 1,000 grams on the MaP test.

There are a few 1.28 flush toilets that hit 1,000 grams. Some of these same toilets flushing 1,000 grams at 1.28 are available in a 1.6 gal/flush. Since we know that 1.6 flushes more, we can estimate that these toilets will flush upwards of 1,200 grams and we would consider them the best of the best.

In our attempt to make things easy for our customers at Union Hardware, we put together some charts of the popular toilets that we sell. This is available on-line at:

http://www.unionhardware.com/MapTest.pdf

The Full MaP test is available at: http://www.cuwcc.org/MaPTesting.aspx

All toilets pictured here are 1,000 gram toilets -- The most efficient and best of the best.

For more information, please contact our sales professional at Union Hardware.