Easing cash flow

David Tanner has a 12-year-old daughter who takes 20-minute showers and leaves him with little hot water.

So when Tanner, an operations manager at Vector Industries, learned of a new water saving kit the nonprofit company was putting together that included a massage showerhead with a 50 percent flow reduction, he took it home and tried it out.

His verdict: Even with just a 30-gallon hot water heater, he now has hot water for his own showers, and expects to save on his water bill.

“It impressed me just having hot water,” Moore said. “So to me, I’m going to save on my heating bill because I’m not using as much hot water.”

Peggy Moore, a human resources manager at Vector, said the new kits would help people conserve water by up to 34 percent. The product’s release, she said, was timed in part to coincide with the utility rate increases that will take effect Jan. 1 in Waynesboro.

“We thought we were going to market this the first of the year, but then we heard that Waynesboro was going to be possibly raising their water and sewer bills, so we wanted to go ahead and kick this off now,” Moore said.

Moore said the other purposes of the product were to conserve natural resources and to provide employment for the company’s more than 110 people with diverse disabilities. It’s something to which even their most severely disabled employees can contribute.

“They’re excited,” Moore said. “They’re ready to come back to work.”

An assembly line of employees will put each part of the kit into the bag.

The company has about 1,000 kits ready to go now, and when their employees return from their holiday break, they will be putting more kits together. Vector hopes to market them throughout the region.

Ginger Quillen, growth and development coordinator at Vector, said the kits are easy to put together.

“One of the things that’s very important about this is that it allows the average homeowner, doesn’t matter who it is, to put it together in their home,” Quillen said, “because we’ve even included the teflon tape, so you don’t have to run out to the store to get that.”

Quillen said she has saved 31 percent on her water and sewer bill in the last five months since she started using the products.

The kit, which sells for $25, will save residents about $380 yearly, Moore said. They will also conserve an average of 35,000 gallons of water yearly.

People can also buy individual components.

“You’ll be amazed how much water you’ll be saving by using these kits,” Moore said.

Water saving kit

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Vector Industries, at 1001 Fairfax Ave. in Waynesboro, is selling the water saving kits for $25. You can buy them directly through Vector, or for an extra $2, Vector will deliver the product to addresses in Waynesboro. For more information, contact Ginger Quillen, Vector growth and development coordinator, at (540) 943-8444, ext. 16, or http://www.vectornva.org.