Urinals & HEU's
What is a High-Efficiency Urinal?
The High-Efficiency Urinal (HEU) has been a part of the North American plumbing fixture marketplace for over 30 years. This long history includes both flushing and non-water urinals. It is only within the past 20 years that it became necessary to adopt a definition of an HEU in order to avoid confusion and mis-labeling of products in the marketplace.
The HEU is defined as a urinal fixture that functions at 0.5-gallons per flush (gpf) or 1.9-Litres per flush (Lpf) or less, a threshold that is 50 percent of the current U.S. national product standard (maximum) mandated by the U.S. Energy Policy Act in 1992. By this definition, the HEU category includes non-water (waterless) urinals.
In 2009, the U.S. EPA’s WaterSense program issued a specification for flushing HEUs. Today, a wide variety of urinal fixtures and flush valves bear the WaterSense label.
High-Efficiency Urinals in the North American Marketplace
Fixtures currently considered as qualifying for the HEU designation fall into several different design and flush volume categories. View the latest 2024-03-14-High-Efficiency_Urinal_list that is organized to display those categories and reflect the latest information obtained from the manufacturers and other sources. The flush volumes shown in the tables are as certified and/or as reported by the manufacturer. It is the responsibility of the reader to verify this information.
NOTE: OUR 2024-03-14-High-Efficiency_Urinal_list SHOWS A TOTAL OF 360 FLUSHING URINALS CERTIFIED TO THE WATERSENSE SPECIFICATION. PLUS 30 CERTIFIED ZERO-WATER CONSUMING URINALS.
THE LISTING ALSO INCLUDES 196 FLUSHOMETER VALVES (FLUSHING DEVICES) CERTIFIED TO THE WATERSENSE SPECIFICATION.
MaP urges readers to seek out performance and maintenance information from industry and other sources when making a urinal selection. In addition, we strongly urge readers to perform a full life cycle cost analysis of purchase, installation, and maintenance before making a purchase decision.
Included in this 2024-03-14-High-Efficiency_Urinal_list is a column that identifies the 360 urinal fixtures and 196 flush valves that have been certified to the U.S. EPA’s WaterSense specification for high-efficiency flushing urinals. Information about the WaterSense labeling program for high-efficiency flushing urinals may be found at: https://www.epa.gov/watersense/urinals
The WaterSense urinal specification may be found at: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents/ws-products-spec-urinals.pdf
The EPA’s own listing of WaterSense-certified flushing urinals may be searched here: https://www.epa.gov/watersense/product-search
For the MaP list of HEUs and links to the HEU manufacturers, go here: 2024-03-14-High-Efficiency_Urinal_list.
