by KIM HILSENBECK
With Central Texas in the midst of a protracted drought, and water costs rising, Hays CISD is taking steps to save money and conserve water – starting in the boys’ restrooms.
The maintenance and operations team has so far retrofitted 14 urinals to be basically waterless at Wallace Middle School as part of a pilot program. Existing urinals were retrofitted with a Betco valve that doesn’t allow the handle to flush, except by maintenance personnel with a special key.
Because the valves are retrofitted, the urinals are not technically waterless, because the maintenance crew still flushes each urinal at least once a day when they clean the bathrooms. But since the new valves prevent others from flushing, they are a kind of waterless system.
The plan, according to R.C. Herrin, the executive director of maintenance and operations for the district, is to eventually convert all of the districts urinals. Each one takes approximately five minutes to install the new valve and costs $145.
He also said his staff saved all of the old values in case they ever need to put them back on. But that doesn’t seem likely at this point.
Herrin says the potential for water, and money, savings is significant.
“We estimate $200 to $400 per urinal,” Herrin said. That could translate to anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000 gallons of water per year just at one school.
That’s a lot of saved flushes and less money going down the drain.
Yet waterless urinals have had their share of negative criticism since they were introduced in the United States in the early part of the last decade.
Problems cited by plumbers and janitorial personnel range from being difficult to maintain to creating a bad smell to costing a lot of additional money for special cartridges and chemicals.
“We were concerned about those issues as well,” Herrin said.
But Herrin said he was very pleased by the pilot test of the retro-fitted urinals.
“I haven’t found any negatives,” he said.
A smart screen at the base, which Herrin said lasts about 30 days, has a bioactive enzyme that breaks down the urine to avoid releasing odor. The urinals were already using a type of screen to prevent debris from going down the drains so the district is not paying for an additional product, just a different type.
Proponents of waterless systems like the one at Wallace point out that the typical smells associated with urinals occur when the area around them is not properly cleaned.
Herrin also checked with his maintenance staff during and after the pilot. He didn’t want the change to cause more issues. But so far, he said his staff seems happy with the retrofit.
Rosario Ortiz, head custodian at Wallace, said, “Using the smart screen in conjunction with the Betco valve is more hygienic, the restroom smells better, and is easy to maintain and clean the restroom.”
