A Welcome Addition To Green Building

(NAPS)—With water costs rising across much of the United States—more than 10 percent in two years, according to a recent survey by the American Water Works Association—building a water-efficient home is a wise investment in the future.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) WaterSense program makes it easy to find builders who can construct a new home that saves water, energy and money. More than 30 builders have partnered with EPA to build more waterefficient homes, and that number is growing every day.

Just as it does for toilets, faucets, showerheads and other plumbing products, WaterSense offers a label for water-efficient new homes, designed to use at least 20 percent less water than typical new homes, both inside and out.

In fall 2010, builder KB Home completed the first residences certified to earn a label under the WaterSense new homes program. These homes, located near Sacramento in Roseville, California, will save 10,000 gallons of water per year and more than $100 per year on utility bills.

“Owning a WaterSense-labeled house means you can enjoy all the comforts of home while using fewer natural resources and saving money,” said Veronica Blette, chief of EPA’s WaterSense branch. “A family investing in a WaterSense-labeled new home will save enough water each year to wash more than six months’ worth of laundry and enough energy to power a television for four years.”

Like many other forward-thinking construction companies across the country, since teaming up with WaterSense earlier in 2010, KB Home, the first national builder to join WaterSense, has committed to building new homes to EPA’s WaterSense specification. Each WaterSense-labeled new home is independently inspected and certified by a licensed certification provider to ensure it meets EPA’s waterefficiency and performance criteria.

WaterSense-labeled new homes feature WaterSenselabeled plumbing fixtures, a hot water delivery system that gets hot water to the tap faster, efficient appliances (if included) and a water-efficient, easy-tomaintain landscape.

The EPA estimates that if the approximately 500,000 new homes built last year had met WaterSense criteria, the homes would save Americans 5 billion gallons of water and more than $50 million in utility bills annually.

For more information about WaterSense-labeled new homes, products and programs or to find a WaterSense builder partner in your area, visitwww.epa.gov/watersense.

 

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