University of Saskatchewan
IN-3: Innovation 3

Gordon Poole, an electrician and 27-veteran in the Facilities Management Division, invented a water-saving device that drastically reduces the amount of water used by traditional urinals. This device will eventually allow the University to curb the consumption of water associated with constantly-running urinals without having to incur the cost of purchasing and installing new urinals. When he was coming up with the idea a few years ago, Poole set up monitoring devices in a test bathroom in the University Services Building to see how much water the old-style urinals used, Every set of urinals has a 10-litre tank that fills with water every four minutes and 20 seconds and then completely drains. Although the tanks are not visible, the filling and draining happens all day, every day. Poole realized he could use programmable logic control (PLC) devices to set up sensors above the urinals so that water only flushes when the urinal is in use. After trying out his new system on a two-urinal men’s bathroom, 8,600 L of water were saved in about 60 days. He named his invention Gord’s Eco Pee and it wasn’t long before he had the green light to begin installing sensors on campus. The Education Building was the first to see the installation of Gord’s Eco Pee and retrofit sensors can be seen above urinals throughout the building. The PLC device is housed in a central boiler room in the building and controls seven men’s bathrooms with about 20 urinals in the building. The sensors must be activated for at least six seconds before a flush cycle is initiated. Poole also programmed the PLC to initiate one final flush for the day at midnight as most of the bathrooms go unused during the night. Installed throughout the Education Building in the summer of 2012, to date they have conserved approximately 29,000 litres per day.