We can live without a lot in our lives. We can even go without food for a while. But water is vital to our survival. Next to air, it’s something that we just can’t do without. And water is used for more than just personal consumption. Our water usage relates to energy usage, and when we’re smarter about water, we’re smarter about energy.

The Water We’re Using at Home

Every parent has said to their children—multiple times, “Turn off the water.” We teach our children the importance of not wasting water, but it’s important for us adults to remember as well. And it’s about so much more than just turning off the faucet.

Water plays a bigger role in today’s modern world than it did in the past. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average American family uses 300 gallons of water each day. And that only accounts for indoor water usage: drinking, cooking, cleaning, and personal hygiene. That’s a staggering amount of water. To put it into perspective, imagine for a moment that you had to carry that much water to your home before you could use it. That would definitely make you think about the amount of water you’re using on a daily basis.

The Leaks That Are Upping Your Water Usage

Research shows that the typical home loses somewhere between 2,000 and up to 20,000 gallons of water each year because of leaks. That’s a lot of water!

Leaks can come from a number of sources, some of which you might not have considered. What about your toilet that doesn’t shut off? Or a tiny leak in your plumbing? It all adds up to a noticeable increase in water usage.

How can you tell if you have leaks in your home? Start by reviewing your water bill. If you see an unexpected rise, it’s probably be time to investigate. You might need help from a professional to inspect irrigation systems or pipes that you cannot easily access. Most leaks are not those that we see with the naked eye.

Water as Power

We use water in and around our homes and offices, but we also use water as a power source. It takes a little more than one gallon of water to produce one watt-hour of electricity. That means a 150-watt incandescent light bulb requires 174 gallons of water to operate for just one hour. But most of us don’t run a light bulb for just one hour. And that water usage just racks up.

Reducing our water usage results in an energy savings. And the opposite is also true: Reducing our energy usage results in a water savings.

We don’t think about this correlation most of the time, mostly because even Energy Star appliances aren’t labeled with how much water is used to create the energy they use.

Easy Ways to Reduce Water Usage

You can take small steps to cut back on your water usage on a daily basis. Here are just a few:
• Take shorter showers: five minutes or less.
• Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth or shaving.
• Switch to a low-flow showerhead.
• Use the half flush option on the toilet when available and appropriate.
• Turn off water faucets tightly (and fix them as needed) to avoid drips.
• Keep cold drinking water in the fridge so you don’t have to wait for it to cool at the tap.
• When washing dishes, use a sink of water to wash and then rinse them all together instead of individually.
• Water the garden only when plants really need it, and then just the roots and soil rather than spraying leaves and flowers.
• Use soaker hoses instead of sprinklers.
• Water outside in the early morning or late evening when water evaporates less.

On this episode of Green Gab, you’ll learn even more about water usage from Angie Mendica of Crescent Plumbing. And read the full chapter about water usage in my book, Living Green Effortlessly, to learn more about how you can use less water—and less energy.

Resources:

Plumbing Fixture Recommendations

Watersense Plumbing Fixtures

Listen the full podcast or read the transcript below.

And this is Marla the Green Home Coach. And today I wanted to chat with you about water.

Yes, water. I know water’s everywhere that it affects our lives. So very much. You know, we can live without oil we can live without, well, we can’t really live without food. But we can go without it for a while. Though water. Water is vital to our very living next to the air we breathe. Water is the most important things in our life. So today I wanted to share with you an excerpt from my book living green, effortlessly simple choices for a better home and it’s talking all about water. So I’m sure every parent has said it more times and they can count turn off the water. This is an important habit to instill in children. But wasting water is something that we adults need to be more aware of. to. This is about much more than turning off the faucet. Water plays a bigger role in our modern lives. And most of us realize according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s water since program family for the United States uses more than 400 gallons of water each day for things like drinking, cooking, cleaning and hygiene. That’s a staggering amount of water. Just imagine having to carry that much water to your house before you could use it.

Unfortunately, leaks account for more than 13%. That’s 52 gallons for that family of four of the water that’s used indoors. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s water since program. A toilet that doesn’t shut off properly, and even very small leaks can result in a noticeable increase in water use. If you see an unexpected rise your water bill, look at all parts of your home’s water system. You may need help inspecting the sprinkler or the pipes that run in areas you cannot easily access that you definitely need to find the link and stop it. A family of four author uses 1200 gallons of water every day and electricity. So that comes to a total of 15 no wait 1600 gallons of water every day. What Yes, thousands of gallons of water are used by power plants to cooling clean key activities. Making electricity as 60 watt incandescent light bulbs uses between 3006 thousand gallons of water and energy that it needs to shine 12 hours a day over the course of a year, according to a study by researchers at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Furthermore, electricity is used to clean heat and move water to our sinks and our showers the interdependencies between energy and water is a fact save water by saving energy saves energy by saving water. Great idea. So almost everything we use in our daily lives has both an energy and a water costs. We just don’t think about it. Since things aren’t labeled with how much energy and water are used in their creation. Maybe they should be there are many things you can do to save water or to use it more wisely. Take shorter showers, five minutes or less. Turn off the tap. When brushing your teeth are shaving. Use low flow showerhead. Some faucets use the half flush button instead of the full flash turn off taps snuggly after using them so there’s no drip. Keep drinking water in the fridge so you don’t have to wait for it to cool from the tap. When washing dishes. rents them all at the end instead of each dish individually. Do something about leaking taps and pipes today. Water the garden only when the planets really needed water just the roots and soils around plants. Rather than spraying the leaves and flowers. Use soaker hoses instead of sprinklers. water the garden early in the morning before 10am or in the evening after 4pm because less water evaporates when the air is cooler. And there’s more ideas to do you want to learn more listening to the podcast that will tell you more about how to use water more efficiently and plumbing fixtures with Angie Mendica of Crescent plumbing. You want to get down and talk toilet talk. This one is it for years. You also can check out the full chapter in my book and learn more about how you too can quit wasting water and use it more wisely. Have a great day. Marla signing out.

Welcome to the Green Gab podcast a place to gab with people rocking it in green green homes green living green companies join Marla Esser Cloos, the Green Home Coach and author of Living Green Effortlessly: Simple Choices for a Better Home and Tony Pratte the director of builder relations at the sound here are your hosts Marla

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Marla  green home coach gabbing today with Tony

Unknown
Tony Pratte over at the sound room.

Unknown
Hey, we’ve got a great guest in studio today.

Unknown
And know if I’d call it

Unknown
listening a lot. And you’re you take that we’ve known for a long enough I feel

Unknown
like I just got here. So I’ll go easy on them.

Unknown
And

Unknown
welcome to Green Gab. Thank you. And you are with

Unknown
I’m with Crescent plumbing supply. I’ve been there for about eight and a half years now. So a little bit background on me there. I started out in the design center, which back then we called the show room and kind of a good place to get your feet wet, if you will. And the plumbing business

Unknown
and you know, just kind of get to know the product and the industry and the people. And then you can kind of go from there. And so for me, I took that background and knowledge. And I quickly started kind of integrating into the outside sales arena. And I’ve been doing that ever since about four years ago, I became fully 100% outside sales. So now my joke is they pay me not to be there. And there you go. So it’s been working out really well. I’m just kind of building relationships and getting the word out about who we are and how we differ from our competitors and things like that. And this is actually a really good example of, I think how we differ in a really good way really knowledge based. And we’re really proud of the products that we offer and the people that we have sharing information and assisting with product selection and things like that.

Unknown
And I personally can attest to that as you help me when I remodeled my bathrooms few years ago. Yeah, that was a real learning experience for me.

Unknown
Yeah, it really is. Because plumbing products you interact with a lot throughout the day.

Unknown
And people I don’t think really put any kind of level of importance on those products. They just expect them to work. And so you don’t really realize how important it is until it doesn’t work. And then it’s always typically it’s kind of an emergency situation. Well,

Unknown
yeah, if you will,

Unknown
going down the toilet

Unknown
more. But hey, we love puns in the phone business you gotta have, you gotta have a sense of humor about it. Yeah, so good luck keeping this PC, I’ll do my best

Unknown
you did introduce me as being in the farming business. So I’ll try

Unknown
sports jacket helps I feel you know, a little bit more lifted. You know, I’ll keep it classy for your mileage.

Unknown
So the plumbing business, as you’re saying has all kinds of benefits to offer to homeowners to residents. And they’re not just water related. And there’s a lot of beauty that comes with our bathrooms. So she looked at kitchen and bathroom magazines all over the place. But I know one of the things that you really taught me that I want to share with our listeners is how water is section important part of our homes and our plumbing fixtures are and how that can be a huge part of our conservation efforts. So it can be beautiful and still work. So I’d love to talk more about that. But also really recognized when you coach me through my own remodeling. How much has become more mainstream, broader efficiency with plumbing fixtures, and how we put all this together. So again, another great topic for us to explore. And I want to make sure we also get some time today to talk about how you as a plumbing supply house can really serve homeowners, residents and the experts if you guys haven’t had and how they really bring so much to the table. If nothing else that I learned from working with year that was probably my biggest takeaway. So I’m just excited to have you on to talk about that. Tony, anything else you want to bring up today that we want to make sure we get Angie’s knowledge rushes here?

Unknown
Well, you know, my big focus. And, you know, I’ve done so many papers on it. And my educational background is the scarcity of water. You know, we don’t think of that, especially in St. Louis. Because we’re, we’re out we’re delusion, it’s a deluge every day. It seems we’re drowning in the stuff. But our listeners need to remember that water is the most precious resource in the world. And whatever we can do to help preserve that, use it more efficiently and do it in a very beautiful manner. Yeah, is the best way to go. When you agree.

Unknown
Absolutely. We offer the residential side of the business and homeowners a huge amount of products and, and service and all that. And we also do dabble and why shouldn’t say dabble a huge part of our business is also the commercial side, right. So we really do cover all aspects. So we can really utilize, you know, more kind of utilitarian feature as well. But to focus kind of on homeowners and residences, I should say people really come in mostly looking for a timeless functional product. And it just so happens to be that those products are conserving water, right? Because the biggest change was when California started adapting the more kind of low flow and lower gallon per flush and things like that, that manufacturers said, we don’t want to have to carry more products and stock some for California and some for everyone else. So they said, We need to figure out what works in the lowest use of water and create a product that works using the least amount of water and that’s what they did. And then Kohler For example, we are huge color distributor, I would say we probably sell more cooler in the St. Louis market than any of our competitors do. And we’re very proud of I’m sure

Unknown
you

Unknown
at least in my old house.

Unknown
Yeah. And so that was when you came to me Marla and said that you were needing some things for your home before you move. The color toilet was something that I suggested in 2011, they came out with a flushing technology that we had seen and other manufacturers but never from cooler color had all kinds of great technology and still does. I don’t know about you. But when the number one things I hear from people when they are doing a bathroom is I want a toilet flushes. Everybody thinks they need bigger toilet tanks to flush well. And bipolar I think has done an amazing job of stepping way outside the box on that. Yeah, there’s just no such thing as a large tank in the toilet world. You’ve not been able to buy a toilet legally. Really?

Unknown
They

Unknown
like it. Yeah, well, no, I mean, not even like you can go to a legitimate store and buy a toilet with a large chain, they could not be produced. And so that was when actually Japan really took over our market with the brand toto a lot of people still recognize as the best flushing toilet. Which mind Do they have not come up with a lot of new technology since then. In the early 90s was a long time ago. Let’s face it, people. Okay. Right.

Unknown
So easy for you to say

Unknown
a long time ago. As far as technology, okay. I mean, we’re their podcast that long ago now. I mean, that’s the thing. We’ve come a long way as a society since the early 90s and guess what toilets and plumbing and showerheads and air rated faucets have come a long way to I mean, it’s not rocket science. It’s just plumbing. That’s what they told me when I started and look here.

Unknown
And so in Japan, they have a lot more people than we do. They did even still back in the 90s and to figure out how to conserve water because of the growing population. And it’s a resource right now here we are 2016 almost 2017 and other manufacturers have come up with products that work really well. 1.28 is the California gallon per flush standard. So every decorative toilet that cooler makes is on a 1.28 gallon per flush standard. And even dual flush toilets. The max flush is a 1.28 It used to be a dual flush was a point eight and a 1.6. And I should know this, but I don’t. But I believe that the smaller flesh is still a point eight could be a point six. So don’t quote me on that. But typically a dual flashes half of the full or flash, you know, you can kind of guess what the flashes or four. But that is an option as well. That’s a totally different technology. Sorry, sorry. Okay. So

Unknown
just in case our listeners have not had the opportunity to interact with a dual flush toilet, which I’m haven’t typically there is a one direction for a half flush for liquid waste only. And then there’s a second directional flush or a second button sometimes for a full flush, which is for solid waste, right.

Unknown
So I should back up. So don’t eat my words. Okay, so there’s a couple different generations of dual flush toilets. So the very first generation that I saw on industry, and there could have been some before this, but from my experience, the first dual flush toilet that I ever saw was a lot more contemporary looking much more narrow and sleek, typically skirted, which means you don’t see the actual channel that the water and things are running through on the bowl portion. And then we would typically picture kind of an oval shape on the top of the tank. And there’s buttons that you push this on a lever, there are more buttons. So one button is larger in size than the other. And the larger button is your full flash. And the smaller button is your half large. So you’re using half the amount of water. So dots for liquid things, and the larger flushes for everything else. So even toilet paper counts. If you’re using paper, you use a full flush. Now we have regular tank type toilets, they look just like every other toilet, they have a lever on the side of the tank or the front of the tank. And it can go up or down. You see this a lot if you go, you know, to like Busch Stadium here in St. Louis, you’ll see it’s a blue and green and there’s typically a little sign that says if you go green, you know it’s typically up because you have to think about that and do that a little differently. So if you go up, it’s a half of flash. And if you push it down, that’s a full flash because most people push down automatically. So if you’re not thinking about it, you’re better safe than sorry everything’s gonna disappear. And so you flush down until you see them in both the commercial that way and also in residence is now where you can get the lever type dual flush and people really like that because it just looks like a definitional you don’t have to explain to people you know, guests and things. How to flush your toilet.

Unknown
Not only figure that out for recycling.

Unknown
Yeah, that’s that’s a lot more difficult.

Unknown
More than two choices, right?

Unknown
Yeah. You know, you do a really good job at the St. Louis co2. There’s another good St. Louis reference for you

Unknown
next again, that’s the explanations right? It really

Unknown
captures Thank you feel really bad. They put landfill on the trash, can

Unknown
they go celebrate the good thing to do not get you for the bad things.

Unknown
But they give

Unknown
you just reminding

Unknown
positive reinforcement. It’s actually yeah,

Unknown
it’s educating you right. yet. As a reminder, yeah, this is going in the landfill. Don’t put anything in here.

Unknown
Okay, so

Unknown
I want to recap this toilet conversation. And then we can take a breather here and move on to the next plumbing thing of the day.

Unknown
See, normally, I always save the toilets for last, you know, save the best for last. But we just jumped right into the

Unknown
desert desert before done.

Unknown
That sounded totally

Unknown
sound right

Unknown
now,

Unknown
ever, whatever. But I know back in the 90s back in the olden days, when we came out with the first quote unquote efficient toilets, so many of them just had smaller tanks, but they hadn’t re engineered the workings was what I always heard. And I don’t know if this is correct, so you can correct me. So a lot of people felt they didn’t flush very efficiently. So it would take two or three flushes to effectively get the results of flushing away the waste. So there was this huge feeling that well, water efficient toilets aren’t really efficient, because I have to flush so many times, right. So I found so many people now going, No, I don’t want a water efficient toilet because they remember the 90s and the poorly flushing toilets in their mind and haven’t taken into consideration that things have been re engineered. Right.

Unknown
I started a statement on this, I didn’t really finish. So I apologize for that. But the point is that it so much time has passed, you know, and when you relate that amount of time to anything else that you utilize in your life. Usually things have progressed, you know,

Unknown
toilets, right call. Yeah,

Unknown
so this is no different and that’s how you kind of first get that kind of vibe that it’s okay, you know, this really is better. I’m not just telling you this, you know, most things progress and toilets are no different. Yeah. Okay. We’re about to have cars that drive themselves. Okay, toilet flush now. Okay, there’s one thing we wanted to do. We wanted to work we wanted to flush Okay, whatever is inside of it, whatever it is, there you go to just disappear with water. And also the technology that’s in you know, the flushing. So coolers technologies switch to basically a cylinder. So you don’t have a flapper anymore. Most people know like have a flapper you can get kind of a universal flapper that’ll go with almost any toilet. Well, that was kind of the way that it works. So you push down the lever and there’s little chain hooks, your flatter and flatter lips up and the flapper tells the water to run through the bowl, and then run its course. And then fill back up for the next flush. So the flapper had only 75% of an opening because the flapper was hitting on the opening. Well, this canister type of flushing from Kohler has 360 degrees of water that rushes in and it’s at the lowest point of the bowl. So you have water going very quickly where it needs to go. They also in 2011, when they launched us on the Walworth and they had not updated the Walworth before this time. Since I don’t know maybe the 70s that’s a model the word Yeah. So this style and any kind of architect or anyone who specifies product knows they just forever would always just right Walworth like oh, we need a toilet Walworth you know, you have to specify a model you can just put toilet or you can just put water cause that they would put Waller which is great for color, I know. But so then when they reinvented the wall, where it’s just kind of as a standard toilet, this is what they did in 2011, they put this new flushing technology on this one toilet only. And then this kind of launched their whole new way of thinking as far as cooler flushing, because they had all these different kinds of technologies working up to this point. So because this is so great, like I said, said before, it’s now on all of their decorative toilets has the lowest flow But anyway, you can still buy a color toilet at a 1.6. Okay, I have a question for you. Hold that thought.

Unknown
Okay,

Unknown
so then they also added water to the bowl. So not only does all that water rush to the middle of the toilet, where I’m just using standard plumbing technology, but we call it bulk waste removal. There’s also a cleanliness aspect of the cooler toilet that is completely different than any other toilet on the market 100% better than a todo because they don’t have any cleanliness. They do not feature any cleanliness standards. They it’s not clean. So we I always say yes. How sell you a total toilet. You’re also I’ll sell you a toilet brush to because you’re going to need it. And we felt really cool European toilet brushes.

Unknown
Yeah, it’s a package deal.

Unknown
Yeah. And wrote in for free, actually.

Unknown
Yeah. And also American Standard, which is also now a Japanese owned. Cool. I didn’t know that.

Unknown
So it’s not an American Standard.

Unknown
That’s me. Yeah. I just want everyone you know, to have all the facts. Okay,

Unknown
continue moving. So try to ask my question,

Unknown
please. No. Yes. Great. Okay. So

Unknown
you keep saying decorative toilet? What’s a not decorative toilet?

Unknown
Okay, so a urinal

Unknown
could kind of see that.

Unknown
Yeah, so cooler, has product suites is a great question. And thank you for asking. So color has product suites that they created. So you can get a bathroom that has everything coordinating the faucet, the sink, the toilet, the recessed mirror, the shower handles, the shower head, the top filler, the top, the shower base, it doesn’t matter what it is, it comes in a full suite matching. Ok. Ok. So they have these different styles. And every style has a name. So those are the decorative or you can do just kind of a more basic kind of looking, it’ll go with anything kind of thing. So the Walworth has a coordinating pedestal, I believe, but mostly, it’s just kind of a standard across the board kind of goes with anything. It just looks like a standard. Gotcha. Okay, and then the Cimarron is the same way. That’s another kind of go to standard because people will call our office or our headquarters or whatever and they’re okay I have a small powder room I need around front toilet with a 10 inch rock. Okay, so standard Ruffin for the floor. That’s where the bolts go. Okay. You measure from the wall not the baseboard, but the wall to the center of your bolt that is your toilet Ruffin dimension standard is 12 inches. Sometimes you see a 10 inch sometimes you see a 14 inch but that’s it. Okay. Okay. So someone calls I need around football with the tenant draft. That from cooler is going to be in a Cimarron. If you want to come Hi. You know, which is standard chair, height, right, Cimarron. Walworth, you can get it in a regular height not chair. Right. Okay. So things like that. So those are the lines that they’re going to have their standard toilets, in the world and the Cimarron decorative is going to be you know, you’re pretty kind of friendly or like more modern or just whatever you want. Or style style. I gotcha. Yeah, we refer to those as the decorative. The one other thing to mention is, I did mention dual flush toilets. And those are great if the max flush is only the 1.28. But if you’re getting the max flush of 1.6, I always suggest just going with a full 1.28 or a toilet that has a 1.28 dual flush. But you don’t really ever want to use a 1.6 dual flush because you’re not really sure of the water savings that you’re going to be

Unknown
a 1.6 is so I am a standard but not necessarily water efficient.

Unknown
That’s the highest gallon per flush that you can buy on the market today. legally. I mean, you can’t I would not buy you on that. I would not buy a three gallon per flush toilet because you want to know why the toilets that are being manufactured today are going to work better. Or not only do they use less water, they actually work better and the bowl is cleaner as far as a cooler

Unknown
like the clean bowl idea.

Unknown
Yeah, editor.

Unknown
That saves me money, time, hassle and germs.

Unknown
Yeah, I mean, and it’s just more aesthetically pleasing as well.

Unknown
All

Unknown
right, let’s take a quick break and we’ll come back and flush more news around

Unknown
it’s just going down the

Unknown
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Unknown
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Unknown
Gavin here with Angie on the green gab podcast. And we have had quite the discussion about toilets.

Unknown
There’s a lot of engineering and it isn’t there a lot of toilet training on

Unknown
gas. I don’t really know much about the engineering of it. I was really impressed with one of the engineers up at cooler my head the liberty to visit not this past summer, but the summer before. And basically His job is to engineer the best toilet on the market. And it was a room similar to the size maybe a little larger for that training. And you know, you have competitors toilets there that he’s studying. And then you have the toilets that he’s created. And you’re there to flush the toilets. And you can see side by side. The differences and color also has like a moving bus like us. Yeah,

Unknown
yeah. would be fun. I’m an engineer by training. I can be a nerd, right?

Unknown
Yeah, water nerd.

Unknown
There’s a cooler bus that we occasionally have does have a toilet

Unknown
on it.

Unknown
I’ll have to let you know. And it’s back out on the roads. So you can try to find it. But it’s really it says something very similar. You know, they have colors, toilets, they have cut in half so you can see the inside and how things actually work. And when it works. It’s cool. It’s great.

Unknown
So you mentioned the color store here in St. Louis. And I know there’s color stores. Would you call it? Color six.

Unknown
We opened a cooler signature store in Le do for non St. Louis. People that are above St. Louis. Yeah, right. It opened in mid May. Now are

Unknown
there other stores like this and other parts of the country? Don’t quote

Unknown
me on this. But we were like the 23rd store maybe or 24th school. There’s others.

Unknown
So folks may be able to look for one in their hometown.

Unknown
Yeah, we may have been more like the 11th store and they’re trying to open 25 at that might be right. So what’s the goal of the store. So the idea is to create a buyers experience. This store is designed for end users and to try it all out. There’s a lot of working product and

Unknown
there’s a great deal of working product in there. It’s gorgeous. And people really get a first hand example of what their options are nice and it’s beautiful. Everyone that goes in there is just completely wowed by it. It’s wonderful. Cooler, has a department for everything. And you know, one of their departments studies how the storage should be laid out, and how the products need to be installed. It’s successful me go back years. It’s very exciting for our company and really excited to be part and oven and have the store.

Unknown
Yeah, I’ve actually been to the corner store here in St. Louis. And it is it’s it’s a wonderful location. It’s beautiful. You walk in, it’s very well done. I know I talked to a builder here in town who was at your grand opening. And he said he was just so excited because Mr. Kohler actually shook his hand and said, you know, thanks for the business.

Unknown
Nice. Yeah, I personally haven’t in the past, just start endorsing a lot of products. But as I’m using more and more things that I find really work, I do want to talk about them because I want other people to know about them. And I know a couple of the things that impressed the heck out of me about color. And thank you for educating me because he You are a big part of that. But not only have they offered a tremendous product that worked exactly like they said it would it beautiful, it was well priced. I got great value for my money. And it’s made in the US. So it’s supporting our people in our country. There’s just so many values around them that I really have appreciated. So I really appreciate you taking the time to help me understand that. And there are other good products out there. No doubt Absolutely. But I’ve had such a great experience with my color products. And now that I’ve moved into my new home, I don’t have color products and I missed them will work on well done. We’re already talking about replacing our toilet

Unknown
I get that was quick.

Unknown
I can’t horrible. You can really tell the difference

Unknown
there

Unknown
before.

Unknown
First of all, you’re welcome. It’s my pleasure. In my experience, it is easy to offer a product that works and color works. We do offer over 100 different product lines, whether it’s I call it pretty plumbing or back of the house where it’s behind the wall under the floor. What have you. We carry over 100 different product lines. As a supply company. We choose product lines that we know we can stand behind. So there are obviously well over 100 different lines right to offer. In plumbing. We choose the lines that we feel like we can see him behind in cooler has time after time. And year after year. prove to us that that is true. That is the case. So I think we started carrying the color line in the 50s. Oh, wow. But they started making plumbing products way before then. And the history of color is really fun to maybe that can be on our next part. I know we’ll have to do another will bring someone from cooler to help talk about that would be fun. That

Unknown
would be really fun. Yeah, well, I know it’s a lifetime warranty on most is it all of their products or just most

Unknown
they’ll actually a lifetime warranty. As far as I understand. It is a state by state kind of thing. I believe in Missouri. When I worked in the design center. It was seven years. I’m not sure what it is now because I I said it’s

Unknown
a lot better than most of the others.

Unknown
Yeah, I sell kind of jobs and company kind of now. So I don’t really individual products elections. I don’t do a whole lot of that and do some work on spec houses and stuff like that, too. But it’s not offering an individual product for each case. But I’m pretty sure it’s something like that is seven years. The thing though about color is that they’re not going to leave you hanging.

Unknown
So you’re not going to get just well. Sorry, you’re out of warranty figured out later. Yeah. And also if that’s the other good thing about buying things from a person at a supply house or at a store that you build a relationship with, as opposed to sometimes buying things online that there’s no person there. You don’t have that connection. Because you can always go back to the relationship and say, Hey, remember me? We created this beautiful space together. And now I’m having this issue. Oh, yes. I love the way you put all that stuff together. I’m happy to help you. What’s the problem? You know, as opposed to amazon.com? You know,

Unknown
there’s a place for me,

Unknown
but I do

Unknown
I do shop Amazon. Don’t get me wrong. But

Unknown
But Angie makes a great point and

Unknown
things like this. And

Unknown
we hear it all the time on construction sites for custom homes have Oh, yeah. homeowner, you know, brought in this from Amazon or that from Amazon. Well, the question is, who’s warranting it? The plumber looks at and says, Well, great, but you’re missing this part. So I can install it. And a lot

Unknown
of times when you choose a builder or if you have a larger scale project, you know, whole house, or you’re working with a remodeler. That’s renowned and that’s what they do for when you’re hiring someone that this is their job, they’re going to advise you to work with local people. So I think the more often the cases that people are buying things online when they want to replace a kitchen faucet, a bathroom faucet eight or a single item

Unknown
for those. Oh, absolutely. Anybody can come into a color signature store and work with a designer consultant. What have you.

Unknown
We have Saturday hours for that specifically at our design center at our main location. Okay, lots of people come in on Saturday mornings. I need a kitchen faucet. My plumber is going to be there on Monday. You know, I need a faucet. He told me to come here and we love those plumbers

Unknown
and we love those people all that are coming to get because the other thing is they don’t know it yet. But they love us because that faucet is going to last them a decade. You know at least it should you know a fossa should last year at least 10 years and by then you want to redecorate anyway, because it’s out of style. And then you can donate it to restore and the second wire

Unknown
yes

Unknown
keep working.

Unknown
Yeah, so there’s a

Unknown
lot of people have existing fossa, go for it. And there’s different things you can do. An elevator is what controls the gallons per minute or your flow of your faucet.

Unknown
But most people think the minute they hear aerator Well, let me back up a minute. So when I put in the fixtures that you provided me, I bought from y’all, my plumber, who was installing them said, Well, let me take the regulator out.

Unknown
And I’m like,

Unknown
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, don’t touch it. He’s like, Well, everybody

Unknown
wants them out. Because the water pressure isn’t good enough said Excuse me, sir? Do you realize that you’re installing a color product and they are designed and engineered to feel every bit as much power as you would with a non regulated shower? No, I didn’t know that was a plumber. But this

Unknown
is this is his. This

Unknown
is his way of thinking. So what the, what this makes me wonder is how many other plumbers are out there thinking they have to take the regulators out, they have to take the haters out because people are going to gripe just like people put in bigger air conditioning units because the H back people don’t want to be called backs. There’s not enough cooling. The plumber doesn’t want to be called back. There’s not

Unknown
enough water pressure. Well, once again, this goes back to the whole technology. Yeah, it’s involved in building science and construction. It’s constantly changing. It’s constantly being updated. And the minute you have somebody that is set in their ways, because they’ve been doing it for 2030 years away. They don’t know any better. Nobody’s ever showed them any different. They haven’t kept up with technology changes. So I mean, that was just it’s all

Unknown
about it. To me.

Unknown
It is about educate, it’s 100%. And so we’ll have different kind of lunch and learns we have different events A lot of times over are the lunch hour or you know after hours. plumbers have to have a certain amount of P us to hold our licenses and every licensed plumber has to have a certain number of P us I think it’s every other year that they have to turn in their p you that’s an

Unknown
continuing education credit, I’m assuming

Unknown
Exactly. Okay. It’s just a matter of trying to get the proper courses in front of the right plumber and the plumbers that are in people’s houses every day. Now, there are lots of plumbers that aren’t my sense those are the ones you maybe don’t want.

Unknown
So now on the facets with the Raiders.

Unknown
Yeah. So that being said, I would always tell people are suggest to folks, you know, when you’re selling them a product and when you don’t know who their installer is, because a lot of times we do because we’re heavily referral based company because we’re wholesale were referred by the businesses. So if you’re working with the homeowner, you do educate them and that way so that they know to have that conversation. Same goes with custom showering. So in California, they severely limited the gallons per minute that your shower can have. So here in St. Louis, we can design a shower that has to shower heads that mount on the wall a rain had that comes from the ceiling body sprays on each side, a hand shower if you want and then you put together the proper valves that will make all that function and you could easily be pumping 1020 gallons per minute and a shower no problem. No problem. Now the average person probably doesn’t use that on a daily basis. But if they wanted to, they could in California you cannot do that. I’m sure there’s some ways around what their limitations are not exactly sure what they are. But for the most part you can’t have that. As far as that goes you don’t ever want to pull any kind restrictor is out of your shower head. It voids the warranty if you should ever have an issue with the product and you want to go back and utilize the warranties that are available. restricted isn’t a good name is it

Unknown
it’s like a regulator

Unknown
I know Yeah, they call it a stricter

Unknown
because engineering because I know the way they work. Just it does really

Unknown
slow though you lower stricter and your whole house your whole plumbing engineering system of your house is not going to work. You have no idea how much water you’re dumping. You could be dumping seven gallons a minute out of one shower head and one bathroom. What affects your kids bathroom

Unknown
feeling? Maybe running your

Unknown
kid takes a shower before you you had to wash a load of laundry because you fell asleep on the couch the night before your dishwasher ran overnight because you said it on a timer. And that’s when it runs your child just took a shower in the bathroom that the plumber pulled the restrictor, whoever pulled a restructuring. Maybe your teenager pulled the restrictor because they said this doesn’t work like I wanted to whoever does that. Okay, and so then now it’s your turn to take a shower. And guess what? You don’t have enough hot water. Because you used all of it on this. You have no idea how much water is pumping out of it. Yep. And that’s what most people take hot showers. So you need hot water. And you need the right amount of hot water. And so your water heater is set to function all the gallons per minute for your whole house. Because that’s how we size them for the whole house. In the event that this should happen. You’re not going to have

Unknown
I want you to repeat what you just said. Because I don’t know that most of us think about all of the plumbing fixtures, the plumbing pipes, the hot water heater all being part of the same system. That was a huge point you just made.

Unknown
It’s a bigger picture than just a toilet faucet. You want to look at your whole house and go how much water Am I using. So you should know every fixture how much water is it pumping out is the faucet in your kids bathroom putting out half a gallon per minute because that would be great. Every secondary bathroom should be half a gallon. one gallon. They’ll be great. Of

Unknown
course we started to turn it off or just runs for

Unknown
Yeah, 2.5 gallons per minute is the maximum right now I don’t know what the Max’s in California, but that’s the max for us here. So 2.5 is the max on a shower head. And I believe on a laptop asset which includes the kitchen faucet as well.

Unknown
I know most of my see without going to water efficient, like a water sense. Future right is your way in the two. Oh

Unknown
yeah. What is the water sense? 2.0 1.5 1.4

Unknown
lab facets for bathroom sink. So sorry, folks. Those of us in the industry column the lab faucet. So it’s a laboratory.

Unknown
Yeah. Shower shower to think showers or 2.5 max. But I think you’re I think it’s to broader

Unknown
sense either 2.0. There’s different levels. Yeah. And then kitchen. Interestingly enough, there’s not a water sense.

Unknown
Kitchen Sink doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Because it’s just going to take up more time to fill up your pot. Right. It’s like a bath tub faucet there, right. No regulation because you’re filling up a vessel. Right container. Yeah, it’s not going down the drain. Mm hmm. Exactly. But I just I love the idea of in the kitchen.

Unknown
Yeah, the bathroom.

Unknown
We can go back to the old picture and bowl Right. Yeah. And you’re contained on how much water use

Unknown
that would be good because kids will never change the

Unknown
water.

Unknown
Yeah, I do have a handful of those kind of green

Unknown
tips things. You think how much water you would conserve if you had to carry all your water up the hill?

Unknown
Oh, yeah, you could serve a lot.

Unknown
I mean, we’ve really gotten kind of spoiled

Unknown
kind of.

Unknown
Okay, something nice. We love our convenience. I love my convenience heard nothing better when we add shower.

Unknown
Well, that’s why we have technological innovation. It’s all about to increase reality

Unknown
we forget. I want to be grateful for that. And I don’t want to take advantage of it. So water is going to be enough for everybody.

Unknown
Yeah, water heaters are a huge topic on those lines. A lot of people think that tankless water heaters you know are going to conserve the most you have to be careful because if depends on your climate, very situational Yeah, that type of product was designed for the southern climates it he didn’t even see them in St. Louis for years. And then salespeople,

Unknown
right years at yard sales people and they just want to sell their product. And you know, it may not always be the best product for you. So people do a lot of research now before they make a purchase. Most people you know, but other people rely on professionals. So you want to make sure that you’re asking a lot of questions when you are even dealing with a professional and just get all the information and hopefully are working with a professional that wants to give you all the information. The great thing about you Marla is that you can be that professional for every aspect of the industry as far as green products in your home period. Or and if you don’t have the answer, you know, someone who does. And so that’s what that’s

Unknown
what I depend on you

Unknown
really great about you because you have kind of weeded out all the people that I don’t trust their judgment. You know, so you’re probably not gonna refer people to tankless water heaters. A lot of people do use them in St. Louis still. And there are, you know, plumbing contractors that suggest them. But you have to kind of do double duty because you’re only going to get to get a maximum of six gallons per minute in the dead of winter. And that means water you need or your house. So that’s when you have to consider every appliance in your home that utilizes water. And you have to do a little simple math and make sure you’re not going to run out of hot water when it’s freezing outside.

Unknown
So here’s a great reason zero,

Unknown
right?

Unknown
Yeah, the water is coming in ice cold. Yeah,

Unknown
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Unknown
So here’s

Unknown
a great reason to work with a company

Unknown
like yours

Unknown
is you guys and ladies understand the systems of plumbing and how all the different pieces impact that system. So when you’re working with a homeowner or a builder or remodel or designer, you can help them to look at all the different aspects because when we as individuals tend to go into a big box store, we’re looking at one component, we go look at a faucet or we go look at a valve or we go look at a tub fixture. And we don’t necessarily see the whole system. And typically people at a big box store aren’t trying to help us look at the system.

Unknown
You guys are a couple of comments on what you just said. First of all, we’re not plumbing engineers. We are merchants

Unknown
are we

Unknown
Yeah, we are offering the best products that we feel are going to solve your problems and function and work in a way that you’re not going to be continuously coming back to us meeting parts and what have you. So we carry Aerosmith water heaters, we have for years, that’s the brand that we carry period, we carry one brand, and it’s amazing. And they are constantly on the cutting edge of high efficiency products that they’re offering. The EPA just passed the NACA, which is basically there aren’t residential gas water heaters over a certain size. So very worrisome, you know, for people and smaller multifamily units that had a tall skinny water heater in a closet. And now where is this thing going to go? What if those heaters are that we installed in this entire building in that closet are eventually going to go out? What are we going to do for those people, you know, things like that. But we try to stay up on those rules and those products and make sure that we’re still always offering quality products, but we’re not engineering a system. So what we do because we are wholesale company, we work with your installer to make sure that you’re going to get a really good product and they’re going to install it properly. And then secondly, the big box stores products are totally different than the products we carry all of your larger brand manufacturers that are in the big box stores and also out of the big box stores. So selling to plumbing wholesalers and the big box stores. And I can’t speak for other aspects. I would imagine that paint is similar because you have Sherwin Williams Sherwin Williams doesn’t sell paint in the big box stores. There’s different levels of quality. So that’s my only analogy. Sorry, that came to my mind, but something like that. Okay. So you have those kinds of different levels of quality. That is the case with plumbing. So the larger manufacturers that are there create a 100% separate product for those stores. Motion is another good example. Kohler does it you’ll make it look that they can look very similar to what’s in supply house, but they are not the same, right. So if you go to one of the big box stores, and you find my website it and it has this name on it, and then you call me or one of our wonderful ladies in the design center and say, Hey, I saw this mon positive the big box store and I love it, I’m ready to buy it. Okay, great. So I go on my own website because I’m not familiar with that style. And I should know every moment style because I work in a plumbing Design Center and it says exclusively at LR w Yes. You know, okay, there it is. Well, I don’t offer that product. That product is filled with plastic it is 100% plastic it as a plastic interior. As a plastic exteriors may have a ceramic cartridge. Great, that’s great. But the outside is actually plastic too. And it’s painted to have a metal finish. There’s nothing metal on that faucet. It’s not brass. It’s plastic. Those products and I I’ve never worked at a big box store. Try not to really use products from the big box. We have to just kind of a different mentality. I don’t know every teach their own right. Thank you. Thanks for

Unknown
thanks for giving

Unknown
me a pass on that. But don’t products, in my opinion, are designed to last six months to a year if you’re lucky year and a half because they want you to come back and buy another one. And so that’s not the business that we’re in. It’s a totally different product. It’s still has the name that you know and trust. It’s totally different product.

Unknown
Yeah, electronics manufacturers do the exact same thing. Because you walk into a Costco, a Walmart, the best buys the world and you look for a TV and it’s like ridiculously cheap. Well, if you walk into more of a boutique store, they don’t carry those. But then again, they carry something totally different at the boutique store that’s made to last a whole lot longer and be a better performance. The big box stores all they care about is repeat business and turn around

Unknown
prices. This is something you and I talked about so much on the green guy was said, if you have an opportunity to support local, you’re going to get people that know their business, you’re going to get to keep people employed in local companies that give back to our community and that know our community and contribute to it. And you oftentimes you’re going to get a superior product,

Unknown
those manufacturers do the exact same thing. They want to have their shelf space in the big box stores because of volume. So they find some products and manufacturing the lowest price possible the Value Engineering to get it to that price point. But then they’re high quality, higher margin longest lasting merchandise they sell out to the local boutique stores.

Unknown
So speaking of stores, since we want to get people to you, how do people learn more about the store? And how can they come in and visit with you guys for their plumbing needs?

Unknown
Sure. Thank you my law. So our color signature store is very easy. You can find them at color as TL calm, and it’ll take you right to their website. Also cooler signature store. St. Louis com.com is

Unknown
all these on the podcast notes here. So if you’re not writing furiously while you’re listening to the podcast, it’s okay. We got you covered. Yeah. Thanks. Also, our website for Crescent is Crescent supply. com. Well, I know how much I’ve learned from you years and I really thank you for that. And I know there’s a lot of exciting stuff to come I’m excited to see what is next around the corner.

Unknown
Yeah, we have that builder show coming up the kitchen and bath industry show merged with the international builders show few years ago now. And so this will be the fourth year that it’s been combined for design and construction week, which is super exciting. And, you know, we get to see our plumbing manufacturers new products. So yeah, maybe another little visit with some product updates. So that would be in favor.

Unknown
There you go. We could talk about that in Orlando when we’re all down. There you go.

Unknown
Yeah, holder there.

Unknown
Angie, I can’t thank you enough for coming on the green gab and sharing so many wonderful things to think about. And I’m sure we’re gonna have a lot more to talk about in the future. So

Unknown
Absolutely. Thank you look forward to it.

Unknown
Hey, have a great day. Thanks. And

Unknown
thanks for listening to this episode of the green gap podcast and for joining us on our own personal green Odyssey as we change the world one green gap podcast at a time. What did you learn about during this episode? Tell us now by visiting our website at Green gap podcast.com. And remember to connect with us via iTunes, Facebook and Twitter. The links to do all of this are at our website green gab podcast.com. Thanks for listening. But more importantly, thanks for rocking it in green.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai