Denver Water Top Partner Award
On March 10, 2015, CAP Management was recognized as Denver Water’s Top Partner.
The award was granted by the water utility to recognize the efforts of our Sustainability Department following the completion of a sweeping interior retrofitting project at our Shadow Wood HOA.
Shadow Wood is a 318-unit HOA in southeast Denver near Tamarac Square. The HOA was suffering from nearly-unaffordable water bills due to the presence of old, obsolete water fixtures in most residential units. The Shadow Wood Board of Directors decided that utilizing CAP Management’s specialty services to ease its water woes was the right choice.
Headed by CAP’s Chief Sustainability Officer Alex Bergeron, the Sustainability Department was able to establish a strong private-public partnership with Denver Water to fund the majority of the project. This way, the HOA itself would not have to bear much of the cost of the mutually-beneficial partnership. While Shadow Wood would be saving a great deal of money on their water bills (in the sum of many thousands of dollars each year), Denver Water would also be conserving a great deal of its water supply, given the large size of the HOA. In the end, The HOA only had to pay minimal administrative costs to CAP Management and about two-thirds the cost of the installations of the “water saving devices.” The Association will recover the costs they paid in a matter of months due to the tremendous savings to be realized.
The “water saving devices,” as Denver Water collectively calls all the items installed, are three different items. The majority of items are ultra-high-efficiency 0.8 gallon-per-flush toilets. These new toilets will provide the greatest savings as they reduce the amount of water used by almost every flush at the HOA by three or four gallons. With that kind of water savings related to every flush, just imagine the financial savings! Each residential unit also received two new faucet aerators (one in the kitchen and one in a bathroom) to save even more water. This reduced the amount of water flowing from each affected faucet from two gallons per minute to one gallon. Reporting on the comfort of use of these new faucet tips suggests that they make more sense than the old ones because you know use only what you need (avoiding spillover waste) and you get used to the slight difference in flow almost immediately. New low-flow showerheads were provided to further water savings.
Since installations began in October, we have not received any complaints from homeowners about the performance of these items. This is particularly important for the toilets, because those have the most risk given their large size and importance. Homeowners have reported being very pleased with the toilets we installed, stating that they like how quiet the toilets are, feel good about using much less water, and are impressed by the modern design of the toilets.
CAP Management is pleased to offer services in environmental sustainability. We feel good about helping conserve natural resources and Association funds at the same time. Give our CSO Alex Bergeron a call at 303.832.2971 ext. 102 or shoot him an email AlexB@capmanagement.com to learn more.