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Posted: December 3, 2007

It’s a story so simple, yet so important as a lesson in how to cope with the planet’s worsening water and energy problems, that it seems destined to be heard around the world. This being the season for miracles, it’s easy to picture this story being heralded as the “Miracle in Orme,” after the name of the tiny town in Tennessee where the “miracle” occurred.

Orme (population approximately 145) is a drought-stricken town in Tennessee that was recently in the news because residents’ water use had to be restricted to three hours a day. Now here’s the rest of the story. The other day the good folks of Orme were visited by a small army of volunteers from plumbing supply-type companies across the U.S. The volunteers fixed leaky toilets and faucets and installed water-saving products such as meter valves, aerators and low-flow showerheads.

The result was nothing short of a miracle. Over 140 gallons of water per household were saved. That’s roughly 45% of an average four-person U.S. household’s daily water consumption. According to Robert Easter, chief executive of Austin, TX-based H2O Guard Inc., which participated in the town-wide plumbing retrofit, 45% is a conservative estimate.

“The last thing most people do” is fix their plumbing, Easter said in an interview. And yet, only two years after it’s been installed, a new toilet generally starts to leak, often without anyone being aware. With more than 100 million households in America, each one having two or three toilets that probably are several years old, that’s a whole lot of leaking water. Add to that a typical home’s dripping faucets and showerheads and it becomes easier to see how, especially in older homes and apartments, a home water makeover could result in huge savings that alleviate and prevent droughts.

Saving water also saves energy because it takes energy to heat water, nearly all of it generated by pollution-causing fossil fuels. Easter said the amount of energy Orme residents will save still must be calculated (Showers reportedly account for about two thirds of an average home’s water heating costs).

To be sure, with drought still gripping the southeastern U.S., Orme’s water problems persist. A pipeline to a new water source is currently being put in. Still, immediately after the retrofit, residents were able to go from three hours of water usage to 12 hours.

Easter estimated that for the average homeowner, doing a water-saving retrofit might cost about $500 to $600 total for parts and labor, with enough water being saved to make the payback period 18 months or less.

Easter said that since Orme, conservationists in drought-stricken Atlanta have been in contact about doing something similar there. He said that he or others working in this area have held discussions with federal environmental and both state and local government officials around the U.S. He added that the sort of “meter valves” made by his company, which he said can stop a toilet from leaking by acting as an automatic shut-off switch after a flush, are soon to be installed in large numbers in New York City. While only homes were retrofitted in Orme, Easter said commercial and industrial buildings could be too, resulting in significant water savings in both.

Should Orme’s water-saving miracle become global news on TV and the Internet, investors could wind up making a lot of money if they hold shares in companies that make such mundane products as efficient water faucets and showerheads. Easter’s company is privately held, but publicly-held companies that presumably could benefit from a nationwide drive to save water include Kohler Co., American Standard Companies Inc., and the Delta Faucet division of Masco Corp.

Easter said he wouldn’t be surprised if big home retailers such as Home Depot and Lowe’s started offering turnkey water-retrofitting services.