First commenter to guess the correct number of fecal humor puns gets a huge steaming pile of respect from the frugalheads.

But seriously folks, toilet water flowage is no joke. Wow, I can’t believe ‘flowage’ didn’t get flagged by spellchecker. If you have a toilet that is anything above 1.6 gpf (gallons per flush), you are flushing your money down the crapper.

The Guv’ment Drops a Bomb on Americans

You see, back in 1994, the government realized that you don’t really need 7 gallons of water to send Mr. Hankey to the Caribbean. It was mandated that all new toilets sold in the U.S. have a maximum flow of 1.6 gpf. Generations were taken back by the fact that they were having to drop their kids off at kiddie pools instead of Kevin Costner’s Waterworld (hint: Kevin Costner movie reference is also a fecal pun).

People were seriously pissed. High flow toilets were selling for more than their purchase price at garage sales.

At first flush, you can see why people might feel cheated. They went from having their Snickers bars float around in more fresh water than an Ethiopian child gets per year to only 2 months worth of fresh water supply. Bummer, dude.

Flexing your Flushing Muscle

Before you turn a brown eye, note that the average person flushes a toilet 2,500 times per year. That’s just nutty. Surprisingly, it appears local Mexican restaurants have been successful in promoting ‘blow out’ specials after all. 2,500 flushes is no laughing matter. That equals, 17,500 gallons of water in pre-1994 terms, but only 4,000 after the low flow mandate. If you take nothing else away from this post, know that you need to dump your old inefficient toilet.

Flexing your Sphinc… I mean Savings

That’s a savings of about $60 annually (for my local municipality, which charges $3.89 per 748 gallons). At the same time, you can purchase a low flow toilet for under $100, allowing you to realize a positive return in year 2 in making the switch.

If it’s Yellow, Let it Mellow…

And don’t forget the age old adage, only flush when you need to, regardless of your toilet’s flowage. So remember, if you should not deliver the next time you sit on the John, don’t be broken hearted, you just saved some serious water, and money. And that’s definitely Poops McGee.

More Toilet Fun Facts

• Most toilets flush in the key of E flat.
• The average person spends three years of their life on the “John”.

Want more toilet humor and MicroFrugality discussion & tips?