By Leila Schoepke | Staff Writer

Back in April 2008, APSU toilets were replaced with the “Uppercut” brand toilet equipped with a “Dual-Flush Flushometer.” These green-handled toilets were installed to save water and were an idea credited to the Sustainable Campus Fee Committee. However, since their installation, not every new green toilet has worked as expected.

Al Westerman, the director of Facilities Planning and Capital Projects at APSU said when they purchased the green-handled toilets, the merchant failed to mention an important detail. They had to find out themselves about the glitch after the fact.

After discovering the new green feature was not working with all the toilets the APSU Physical Plant staff investigated and isolated the problem.

APSU’s older toilets were made to operate up to five gallons of water pressure while the new green toilets were only meant to deal with up to 1.6 gallons of water pressure. For instance, some of the toilet devices in the Browning building, which Westerman said is over 50 years old, are among the toilets that would need to be replaced in order for the new toilet technology to function properly. This new technology has existed for only 10 years now according to Westerman.

“When they built this university, of course at that time, they had standard toilets, standard commodes—the five-gallon variety in a lot of different configurations. Well, a lot of these buildings around here are old. The newer buildings, the University Center, the Foy Center, the new HSC building which we just started this week, the new dormitory … they’ll have new equipment. We won’t have a problem, but it’s these older ones where those green valves will do the most good.”

“The flush valves operate correctly in the newer china bowls, however, they have a problem in the older china,” David Lemons,  Physical Plant Interim Director, said who has been directing the installation of the green flush valves after APSU received them.

“There is a project to replace the older china, which Mr. Westerman is the project manager, and as far as I know, the green flush valves will remain,” Lemons said.

The energy management firm Ameresco is the company under which Westerman is managing one of his APSU energy related projects, such as the replacement of the old boilers in the boiler house, which are beyond their normal life span and need to be changed.

Westerman said this project is funded by stimulus money, which is enough to pay off the stimulus projects outright. That includes the commodes, the changing of the china and the boilers, etc. The saved money from the energy will be conserved can be applied to pay off the note that would normally be borrowed money.

He explained what happened is initially there were three different designs on the 1.6-gallon toilets.

He said the first one came out to be a terrible failure due to the round shape of the bowl that makes the water swirl without disposing of the waste and flash the toilet over and over again, which ends up wasting all the savings.

“Another case of our best intentions to do something great turned out well wasn’t quite perfect, but now we’ve got it fixed.”

Under the Ameresco project, APSU will locate all the old toilets that are five gallons and replace them with the 1.6-gallon variety, which will make the green handles work extremely well, according to Westerman.

According to Westerman, the Sustainable Campus Fee Committee bought the green handles and paid to have them installed, but now under the new Ameresco project, APSU will replace all the china so the commodes will function effectively.

Another energy saving project, like the new popular electric cars, Westerman is working on with the Sustainable Campus Fee Committee is a recommendation from his part to replace all the faucets around the academic buildings with others that are touch free. This will not only prevent the spread of germs but will also save water.

“The fact is the green handles do work. Now the new commodes don’t have this problem,” Westerman said.