That adds up to:
Olympic swimming pools.
As WegoWise tracks more apartment buildings, a clearer picture develops of the entire population's usage, both tracked and untracked. We can extrapolate the savings for an entire state as apartments become more efficient. Our first investigation looks at water use in Massachusetts and California.
If apartments became as efficient as the top percent ↔ , multifamily buildings in California ▾ Massachusetts ▾ could save million gallons/month.
minutes of flow from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico.
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Efficiency upgrades impact not only water conservation, but also the bottom line. We've written about the rising costs of water and the steps you can take to reduce costs over on the WegoWise blog.
- Since WegoWise usually tracks usage at the building level, the histogram shows the proportion of buildings, not bedrooms, even though the usage units are normalized to bedrooms. The savings calculations account for this discrepancy.
- The California histogram is bumpy because it comprises fewer buildings — only 500, compared to 2500 from Massachusetts. (Massachusetts, where WegoWise was founded, has a head start).
- The number of apartments in each state were extrapolated from the 2009 Residential Energy Consumption Survey: 0.95 million for MA, 4.3 million for CA.