Water aerators are a low cost way to save money and increase water efficiency in your home.
Faucet aerators are a simple, inexpensive way to reduce water usage without decreasing faucet pressure. Aerators are small screened cylinders that screw onto your existing faucet. When the water flows through them, it is mixed with air from the gaps in the screen. This helps maintain a high, consistent water pressure without letting as much water through.
Bathroom faucets without aerators use between two and four gallons of water per minute while faucets with aerators typically use less than one gallon per minute. Similarly, adding an aerator to your kitchen faucet can help decrease water flow from 3-5 gpm to 1.5 gpm. Some kitchen aerators even come with swivel heads to help maintain full kitchen functionality.
If you already have an aerator on your faucet, check its flow rate (this should be printed or engraved on the side). If the flow rate is greater than 2.75 gpm, replace it with a more efficient model.
Faucet aerators typically cost less than $10 and can be purchased at your local home improvement store. There are no installation costs as they simply screw on to the faucet and can easily be done without professional help. Installing aerators can help decrease daily per capita faucet water use by at least 13%, saving substantial money on water utility bills. They can also decrease hot water use by almost 11%, saving not only on water use but on water heating as well. This ends up saving about 1,700 gallons of household water use per year, 1,300 of which are hot water. (H2OUSE).
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