Sustainability features

These toilets allow for directional flushing— one way for solid waste and one way for liquid waste — designed to conserve the amount of water used per flush.

Every washer in the residence halls is a Maytag White Commercial High-Efficiency Front-Load Washer that is designed to sense the amount of clothes inside in order to dispense the correct amount of water for each load. In doing so, these washers save 50% more water than traditional washers, and require less detergent per load due to their high-efficiency feature.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the average maximum flow rate of a traditional faucet is 2.2 gallons per minute. Every faucet in our residence halls is low-flow and water saving. The majority of the residence halls use faucets with conservational flow rates of 1.5 gallons per minute, some with flow rates as low as 0.5 gallons per minute.

All of the shower heads on campus are designed for water conservation, with low flow rates of 1.75-2.0 gallons per minute, well below the federal mandated flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute or less.

The furniture used in both the residence hall lounges and offices are made with forest conservation in mind, some even certified by the Scientific Certification Systems for their sustainable designs. The majority of the fabric used in these pieces are made with 100% recycled materials, and the main furniture production company we use is located within only 500 miles of UW-Whitewater.

To limit waste, we recycle all mattresses that can be recycled. In order to meet recyclability requirements, mattresses must have steel springs and cotton ticking.

The carpeting in new construction areas on campus contains as much as 40.7% recycled content. Remodeled halls also have carpeting made from recycled materials.

The water bottle filling stations attached to many of the drinking fountains in the dorms and university housing buildings help to reduce the amount of plastic bottles sent to the landfill. The Green Ticker, located above the stations, shows the estimated number of water bottles that have been saved through this technology.

The heat in our buildings is monitored and managed via a temperature control application. As the external temperature goes down, the amount of steam distributed to heat the building rises, ensuring that the amount of steam used is proportional to the amount truly needed.

In our buildings with elevator systems, we have chosen to install traction elevators instead of hydraulic style elevators or others with larger mechanical units. Traction elevators are more efficient and conducive to our mission of energy conservation, driven by equipment on the shaft wall rather than large, underground shafts that force hydraulic fluid back and forth to move the unit.

Machine rooms without elevators, a great energy-saving initiative, are located in Arey, Tutt, Fischer, and Wellers halls.

The shared appliances located in the residence halls — such as refrigerators and stoves — use about 3% less energy than federal standards require, working as yet another way that we prioritize sustainability.

Low mercury level (1.7mg) lights are used in the residence halls. These lights consume very low amounts of energy, sitting at a voltage of 32 watts. 

All windows are given certain heat-loss ratings. U-values indicate the rate of heat-loss that a window has. The lower this number is, the better. The ratings given to the majority of our residence hall windows have U-values ranging from 0.68 to 0.25, allowing for energy conservation.

In order to not use excess energy, we have installed motion sensors in our residence halls that ensure that lights are only on when people are actually using them. When these sensors do not detect movement, the lights in the area turn off and remain off.  

Many of the cleaning products used in the residence halls are either green chemicals or Green Seal Certified.

We use Sanitaire SC9180 vacuum cleaners in all of our residence halls. These vacuums use a HEPA (High-Efficiency Particulate Air) filtration, earning them certification from the United States Green Building Council.