Potable Water
See our Water Shortage/Georgia Drought News
Water Use Reductions: Georgia Tech has installed water meters to measure makeup gallons to closed loop systems, irrigation systems, and cooling towers campus-wide. The information from dozens of these meters has helped diagnose leaks resulting in less wasted water and lower water bills.
Georgia Tech has recently dug two wells, near our main chiller plants. By not using city processed water, we are avoiding the energy needed to process it and distribute it to the chiller plants.
Landscaping have been installing irrigation systems that minimize the watering of landscape, in an effort to reduce our use of potable water for irrigation. These intelligent watering systems only water when no rain is forecast and only when the soil tests indicate irrigation is truly needed for that area.
As we are purchasing new clothes washing machines and dishwashing equipment on campus and other water dependent devices, we are working to select the most energy and water efficient models that meet our needs. New dishwashing equipment use only 70% of the water required by older machines. Where available and appropriate, we are selecting
EnergyStar appliances.
The University has undertaken 
a retrofitting of its plumbing
fixtures with water conserving
techniques.
Using only the condensate water from the two buildings with hoses from the roof to the collection containers, we avoided using 618,750 gallons of potable water in 2.5 months to irrigate our landscape and avoided the loss of value green assets during the 100-year-draught Atlanta experienced in 2007.
Use of water collected and stored as part of the Eco-Commons will further reduce our need to use potable water for irrigation. In the spring of 2006, GIT implemented 3 reforestation pilots.
Rain water and condensation from HVAC systems will be captured in cisterns and used for irrigation and grey water application. This was implemented around the Klaus Computing Building, which is pending for LEED certification. The potable water saved through use of this program was not measured this summer.
Gator bags allow water to slowly seep into the ground to water the roots of the plant, as opposed to running down hill away from the tree.
