A small investment in water conservation solutions is paying off big for Saddleback Medical Center, a 252-bed hospital in the MemorialCare Health System. Thanks to water-saving retrofits recommended and implemented by Water Saver Solutions (WSS), Saddleback Medical Center’s average monthly water costs decreased by 32.6% and average monthly water use decreased by 37.4% over a nine-month period.

The savings were verified through measurement performed by an independent third-party company, Ecom-Energy, using its EnerVisor software.

WSS found and obtained utility company rebates that reduced the hospital’s costs for the retrofits by more than 61%. As a result, the project achieved ROI in less than six months. In the first nine months after project completion, the hospital saved $26,000 in water and energy costs.

In March 2017, WSS audited water and energy use at MemorialCare’s three Southern California hospitals—Saddleback Medical Center, Orange Coast Medical Center and Long Beach Medical Center—and provided conservation recommendations. The audits of Saddleback and Orange Coast were conducted at no cost to the hospitals, thanks to a unique incentive program that WSS developed with Southern California Gas.

Saddleback Medical Center moved forward with WSS’s recommendations. Between July 2017 and December 2017, WSS installed 109 low flow shower heads and 762 faucet laminar flow control devices and retrofitted seven medical sterilizers with water-saving kits.

Saving water and gas isn’t the only benefit of WSS’s conservation efforts. WSS also helps protect hospitals’ faucet spouts and showers from bacteria growth by installing faucet laminars and shower heads that have an antimicrobial component and providing an ongoing maintenance program.