Water conservation efforts have reached the main stage in environmental policy changes. For property owners, this has resulted in new regulations and legal requirements concerning what is “standard” for property plumbing.
When selling, trading or leasing properties, property owners must anticipate these new plumbing regulations as they are enacted in future legislation; this applies to single family, multifamily and commercial properties alike.
For legal purposes, the State of California considers all of the following to be noncompliant plumbing fixtures (fixtures facing mandatory replacement or removal in upcoming regulatory changes):
As per California’s Senate Bill No. 407, approved and filed in October 11, 2009 and effective January 2014, any single-family property alterations must include replacement of noncompliant plumbing fixtures to receive permit approval.
Beginning January 1, 2017, any noncompliant plumbing fixtures in single-family properties must be replaced by the property owner with a water-conservative alternative. On January 1, 2019, this requirement broadly extends to include multifamily and commercial residential properties.
In certain circumstances, however, such replacements to multifamily and commercial properties are already required (as per the January 2014 enactment). This includes:
What all of this means is, generally, if your commercial residential or multifamily renovations exceed a certain budget or space, or require a permit, you’ll also be required to update noncompliant plumbing fixtures… which will become mandatory anyways in 2019.
The compliance regulations listed in the above segments do not apply to the following properties or types of property, as listed in Senate Bill No. 407:
High-efficiency plumbing fixtures are becoming standard for good reason. They’re innovative technologies that home and commercial property owners should install in their buildings not just because it’s becoming legally-required to do so, but because it can help reduce environmental footprints and save millions upon millions of dollars nationwide.
Water-conservative plumbing solutions are going to become a legal requirement for all Californian residential properties by 2019. While you can sit back and wait until then to update your noncompliant plumbing fixtures (or even sooner, if you’re a single-family homeowner), we recommend being proactive in the face of these regulations and replacing your outdated fixtures today.
Inefficient plumbing fixtures, from running toilets to outdated faucets, can consume as much as 30% more water than high-efficiency models - this has implications not just on the environment, but also on your wallet.
Replacing noncompliant fixtures is going to happen one of two ways: either by legal requirement or by choice until it is required to do so. Due to the great savings that come with these solutions, why wait?