Low Hanging Fruit II: Shower Head

Did you know the US uses 1.7 trillion gallons of water a year just for showering?  The EPA estimates that showers comprise 17% of all residential water use.

The shower head in my master bath felt amazing.   It had large holes and my house has fantastic water pressure, so there was a lot of water coming out.   I figured that I could decrease the water flux by a significant amount without decreasing the experience.

Well, I picked up a new shower head, one that is EPA Watersense certified.  It is supposed to offer the same performance, while decreasing water use by 30%.  I take this to mean that a good shower is not simply defined by the amount of water, but by its velocity and how evenly it's distributed.  When the flow is restricted on a regular shower head, the streams can be weak, and the shower experience sucks.  In a water efficient shower head, the exit holes are smaller so the water exits at a higher velocity, mitigating this problem, so you don't end up like Jerry Seinfeld...

Anyway, I got the new shower head and decided to do a test in real life conditions.  With both shower heads, I turned the water on full [note: my shower is either all on or all off, but the pressure does change depending upon how much hot/cold water is used so I was sure to use the same "temp" each time].  I measured the time for each shower head to fill up a 2 gallon bucket.  Here are the results:

Old:  51 seconds
New: 77 seconds

This translates to 2.35 gallons/minute for the old shower head, and 1.56 gallons/minute for the new shower head.  Success!  This new shower head uses 34% less water!  And it still feels great.  It's a no brainer.

I imagine my typical shower to be 8 minutes long (I know, I know, but I love showers).  So this shower head switch saves about 6 gallons per shower.  Not too shabby.  It's comparable to the amount saved by "letting it mellow."

Oh, and this also decreases by 34% the natural gas burned to heat the water.  Bonus.