David Lupberger: Hi, I’m David Lupberger with servicemagic.com. I’m here with Michael Worth from Danze, and Danze creates a lot of fixtures and things for the bathroom kitchen. Can you tell me a little more about what you do and what we’re standing in front of, Michael?

Michael Worth: In addition to looking at an upcoming compliance issues with regard to lower flow, we’re taking a pro-active stance to enable our consumers to have water efficient products in their homes, whether it be toilets, showers, or faucets.

David Lupberger: Well, you know the question now.

Michael Worth: Yeah?

David Lupberger: All right, so low-flow.

Michael Worth: Right.

David Lupberger: I’ve got two problems, low-flow is an issue with most commodes.

Michael Worth: Right.

David Lupberger: Alright, low flow an issue in the shower.

Michael Worth: Right.

David Lupberger: So, tell me how Danze starts to address some of these low-flow questions.

Michael Worth: Our basic premise is that low flow, to get to a low flow environmentally sound position; you should not ask the consumers to sacrifice on style and performance.

David Lupberger: Alright.

Michael Worth: That’s absolutely a principle.

David Lupberger: Bingo, okay so on the same page.

Michael Worth: Yeah, and so we worked very creatively with our engineering staff and our RND staff to come up with new technologies and new designs, engineering designs to ensure that the performance or the appearance of the product is not subjugated to getting low-flow.

David Lupberger: Well, if I get a low flow showerhead.

Michael Worth: Yeah.

David Lupberger: I’m familiar then with not a whole lot of water coming out.

Michael Worth: Right, one thing we do on our low-flow showerheads is that we provide a magical device called a pressure compensating flow controller. What this little device does is that it automatically senses pressure, the house pressure and make sure that the full 1.5 gallon per minute rate is achieved no matter what your house pressure is.

Other showerheads at lower pressure may flow at even below 1.5, so we want to make sure that the consumer gets its full 1.5gallons per minute at any house pressure. What we do in our shower heads is to make sure that the costumer has a great selection of style, either contemporary or traditional, and a great selection of finishes to compliment their existing lavatories. We don’t want them to sacrifice on that also.

David Lupberger: Alright, any comments about the low-flow commodes

Michael Worth: Yes, a key point in our low-flow toilets is that the performance is so good that it ensures that when people flush, they only have to flush once.

David Lupberger: If that is the question with all of local toilets.

Michael Worth: Exactly, and so these toilets have great performance and you really downplay the occurrence of needing it to flush twice which is, you know negating the whole benefit of having a low-flow toilet.

David Lupberger: That’s been the common concern.

Michael Worth: Exactly, so that’s a great feature in these toilets.

David Lupberger: Alright, any other comments about what Danze is doing now and looking into the future.

Michael Worth: Yeah sure, another thing we’ve been working on the last almost two years now is we’ve taken a pro-active approach taking all of our lavatory faucets down to 1.5 flow with the proper flow controllers and also providing a laminar flow which is a beautiful water delivery.

So we’ve taken our pro-active stance on that, and now we’re in a process of just finishing up a water sense certification for all of our lavatory faucets.

David Lupberger: Water sense certification

Michael Worth: Right.

David Lupberger: I’m not sure what that is.

Michael Worth: Water sense partner kind of lose the fact that you’re working with water sense on these initiatives, but when you get water sense certification, you have to prove with independent lavatory testing that you are at 1.5 flow in your lavatories. So we’re just working though all of that certification on that, so we are ahead of the game.

David Lupberger: Michael, thank you.

Michael Worth: Thank you