Three Products That Won't Reduce Your Water Bill

What a Check Valve Actually Does

A check valve is a one-way flow control device. Its only function is to prevent backflow — water flowing backward through the pipe. It does not reduce water pressure. It does not reduce water volume. It does not affect what your meter records.

A check valve installed on your supply line will have exactly zero impact on your water utility bill. Your meter will read the same volume before and after installation. This is not a design limitation — it is what the product is designed to do.

The confusion arises because Smart Valve™ is sometimes described as a "flow control valve" — which is accurate but incomplete. The critical difference is that Smart Valve™ uses a patent-protected mechanical hydrodynamic mechanism to maintain upstream pressure, preventing dissolved air from expanding through the water meter. Air entrained in commercial water systems is metered and billed as water — a phenomenon called Phantom Volume. Eliminating Phantom Volume reduces what the meter reads. A check valve does none of this.

What Low-Flow Fixtures Actually Do

Low-flow showerheads, faucet aerators, and low-flush toilets reduce flow rate at individual fixtures — meaning occupants get less water per minute or per flush. This does create some reduction in consumption at residential scale, which is why municipalities recommend them for household use.

At commercial scale, the math falls apart. A hotel, hospital, or apartment building has thousands of individual fixtures. Retrofitting all of them is expensive, disruptive, and delivers marginal results — typically 5–10% at best, with significant occupant complaints about pressure and experience. For high-volume uses like HVAC cooling towers, laundry, pool fill, and kitchen operations, low-flow fixtures offer zero benefit. These applications consume the bulk of a commercial water budget, and no aerator touches them.

Smart Valve™ installs once on the main supply line and reduces the metered total across every downstream use simultaneously — including HVAC, laundry, pool, and all fixtures — without restricting pressure or flow at any point.

What a PRV Actually Does

A pressure reducing valve (PRV) lowers the water pressure delivered to a building or system. It is a legitimate plumbing device — it protects pipes and fixtures from high-pressure damage and is often required by code in buildings where incoming main pressure exceeds safe operating levels.

However, a PRV does not reduce metered water volume. It reduces pressure — the force at which water arrives — but the same volume of water still flows through the meter. Your utility charges you for volume, not pressure. After a PRV installation, your water bill will be the same.

The misconception is particularly persistent in facilities management because PRV vendors occasionally suggest that lower pressure means less water consumption. This is only partially true: at lower pressure, some fixtures deliver slightly less flow per minute. But the net effect on a commercial water bill is negligible — typically less than 2–3% — and it comes at the cost of reduced pressure throughout the building.

Smart Valve™ addresses a completely different mechanism: air entrainment. Commercial water systems carry dissolved and entrained air that is metered and billed as water. Removing that air reduces what the meter reads — which is what actually appears on your bill.