Durham’s Toilet Rebate Program

We love hearing when neighbors have done household projects to decrease their utility bills.  Here is a recent email that Gary in Watts Hospital-Hillandale sent to his neighbors.

I just wanted to pass this on.  I recently had to replace an obviously leaking toilet and found out that the City offers some real incentives to do so. First is the $100 credit towards the new toilet. The new toilet has to be a brand and model that is: (a) a high-efficiency toilet (1.28 gallons per flush or less, a.k.a. ‘HET’), and (b) on the list that Durham City keeps of qualifying toilets. It’s real—as I purchased a qualifying model at Home Depot that cost me $117, netting me only a $17.00 replacement cost.  In addition, since my old toilet was leaky and it led to a higher than normal water bill, the City retroactively refunded a portion of my water bill.  All I had to do was demonstrate that I replaced a leaky toilet and they verified that next month’s bill went down considerably—in my case it was an almost $100 refund!

You do have to keep track of your receipt for the qualifying new toilet and fill out the forms (I think they can only be done by hand) and personally take them down to City Hall, but it was certainly worth it for me.

Leaky toilets are often times hard to detect.  According to a site I was reading recently, leaks account for over 13% of daily water usage in this country.  Also, replacing a toilet is a pretty easy to do plumbing task—and you should always know what is going on underneath your toilet.  The City’s site has instructions for replacement and of course there is YouTube for instructional videos.  You can contact the City at 919-560-4381 or visit the website here or here.

-Gary F.