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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hi brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbom Here. As the old saying goes, nothing is

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Speaker 1: certain in this world except death and taxes and the

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Speaker 1: unnecessary premature flush of an automatic toilet. If you've ever

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Speaker 1: set foot in a public restroom stall and immediately been

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Speaker 1: greeted with the jarring sound of a mechanized deluge of water,

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Speaker 1: you're not alone. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there

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Speaker 1: are about twenty seven million self flushing toilets just in

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Speaker 1: the United States, and many of these motion sensor equipped

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Speaker 1: machines exhibit the disconcerting behavior known as phantom flushing, sometimes

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Speaker 1: referred to as ghost flushing. This is the phenomenon of

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Speaker 1: a toilet's water refill valve switching on after a period

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Speaker 1: of inactivity. It can actually happen in old school manual

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Speaker 1: flush toilets to due to valve deterioration, but when it

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Speaker 1: comes to automatic flush toilets, the occurrence seems so common

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Speaker 1: that it's almost expected, until, of course, you need the flush,

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Speaker 1: and then the motion sensor seems to fail you in

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Speaker 1: every way. But why did society decide to move toward

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Speaker 1: an automated flushing system? In the first place, and has

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Speaker 1: the move helped or hurt attempts to save water. The

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Speaker 1: trend toward automatic flush toilets took off in the nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: Touch free bathroom fixtures were marketed as more hygienic options

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Speaker 1: for high traffic areas like airports, and eventually they were

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Speaker 1: also touted as water saving solutions in drought affected states

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Speaker 1: like California. But according to environmental advocates, the original automatic

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Speaker 1: flush products did nothing to serve the environment. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the older models were suspected of causing more harm than good.

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Speaker 1: The e p A even claimed that about twenty six

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Speaker 1: percent of the twenty seven million automatic flush toilets around

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Speaker 1: the country flushed at volumes higher than the federal standard,

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Speaker 1: which is one point six gallons or six leaders per flush,

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Speaker 1: and that some flushed as much as three to seven

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Speaker 1: gallons per flush, that's eleven to twenty six leaders. We

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Speaker 1: spoke with John Kohler, and engineer and water efficiency expert.

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Speaker 1: He said, when compared to a manual flush toilet, there's

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Speaker 1: no way that automatic toilets saved water, because what can

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Speaker 1: be better than a single flush per use? The typical

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Speaker 1: automatic flush toilets have the propensity to double flush, triple flush,

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Speaker 1: or even worse due to being out of adjustment, poorly installed,

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Speaker 1: or poorly maintained. So there's no water conservation benefit with

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Speaker 1: automatic flush toilets, but there is the potential for water waste.

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Speaker 1: To quantify just how much water was being wasted, Cohler

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Speaker 1: and his colleague Bill Gali developed something called the Maximum

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Speaker 1: Performance or MAP testing protocol to provide an independent assessment

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Speaker 1: of toilet water efficiency. Armed with the MAP test, Cooler

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Speaker 1: and Gali conducted one of the only studies to date

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Speaker 1: examining water used by automatic flush toilets as compared to

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Speaker 1: manual flush. The pair found in their twenty ten research

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Speaker 1: that compared to manual flush toilets, automatic toilets increased water

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Speaker 1: consumption by due to phantom flushing, But according to plumbers

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Speaker 1: in the field, automatic flushing technology has vastly improved in

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Speaker 1: the eight or so years since Kohler's research. We also

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Speaker 1: spoke with Brian Minor, owner of Bay Area based Minor Plumbing.

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Speaker 1: He said automatic toilets do, in fact save water because

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Speaker 1: people have a tendency to think that if you hold

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Speaker 1: the handle down longer, it will have more flushing power. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's more water, but it certainly isn't more flushing power.

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Speaker 1: He says that while older automatic models weren't up to task,

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Speaker 1: newer models are in fact eco friendlier, and although some

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Speaker 1: have blamed years of phantom flushing from older models on

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Speaker 1: poor installation and maintenance, substandard technology, and poor training, maybe

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Speaker 1: the more likely culprits, Miner said plumbers weren't given a

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Speaker 1: heads up on the new technology. This product was slapped

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Speaker 1: on our knees and we were left to figure it

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Speaker 1: out and make it work. That being said, it's really

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Speaker 1: tough to mess it up and make it so the

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Speaker 1: toilet is phantom flushing. The blame is really on the product.

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Speaker 1: It was new and it was faulty. He also said

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Speaker 1: that installation should always be taken care of by a professional,

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Speaker 1: although newer automatic models are a lot more user friendly.

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Speaker 1: Kohler agrees that phantom flushing shouldn't be pinned on plumbers.

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Speaker 1: He said ignored maintenance, deferred maintenance, or poor maintenance could

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Speaker 1: all lead to faulty performance of the flush sensor used

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Speaker 1: to trigger a flush. In addition, many of these so

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Speaker 1: called automatic flush toilets are installed in toilet rooms subject

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Speaker 1: to abuse by the public or others. How usage, toilets

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Speaker 1: need to be monitored for performance by the maintenance personnel

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Speaker 1: and fixed when needed. This does not always occur in

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Speaker 1: many installations. Minor also alluded to another reason automatic flushing

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Speaker 1: toilets may no longer be the major water wasters they

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Speaker 1: once were. Some brands are partnering with the e p

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Speaker 1: A to create eco friendly products that are performance tested

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Speaker 1: and validated by various agencies to meet the e PA's

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Speaker 1: gold standard High Efficiency. Toilets that meet the e p

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Speaker 1: A stringent guidelines get a water Sense label, letting customers

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Speaker 1: know they're purchasing a product that's expert approved and much

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Speaker 1: less wasteful. Water Sense products flush at one point three

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Speaker 1: gallons or four point eight leaders per flush, which is

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Speaker 1: twenty less water than the federal standard, and the e

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Speaker 1: p A says there's more to save than just water

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Speaker 1: when purchasing a water Sense product. They estimate that a

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Speaker 1: ten story office building with one thousand occupants could save

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Speaker 1: one point two million gallons or four point five million

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Speaker 1: liters of water and more than ten thousand dollars in

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Speaker 1: water costs by replacing old automatic flush toilets with water

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Speaker 1: Sense labeled models, The agency wrote in a statement, if

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Speaker 1: commercial facilities nationwide replaced all of their older inefficient flush

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Speaker 1: ometer valve toilets with water Sense labeled models, we could

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Speaker 1: save nearly thirty nine billion gallons or a hundred and

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Speaker 1: forty eight billion liters of water per year. That's equivalent

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Speaker 1: to nearly one full day's flow of water over Niagara Falls.

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Speaker 1: So if you're planning to purchase your own automatic flushing

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Speaker 1: toilet at home, be sure you look for the most

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Speaker 1: up to date products out there, and if you're walking

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Speaker 1: into an out of date public restroom, beware of phantoms.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Michelle Konstantinovski and produced by

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Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other

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Speaker 1: efficient stories, visit our home planet, how stuff works dot

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Speaker 1: com