3 ways to save water while showering
I love a shower, I really do. But one morning this week I felt at odds in my place of sanctuary.
I started my normal routine; kids wake me up far too early, I fend off the first 'argument of the morning', I wander like a zombie into the shower and after a few minutes I'm starting to feel human again.
But this particular morning is different, I glance down at the plug hole and am struck. Like a Waterworld bad dream I can't help but think; there's a lot of water down there, a bit too much. And bam it hits me...
Thing number 3 this week will be can I save water while showering.
My first task was to find out how much water I actually use, and then how much water I can save by making changes to my daily shower.
'In an average home, showers are typically the third largest water use after toilets and clothes washers. The average American shower uses 17.2 gallons (65.1 liters) and lasts for 8.2 minutes at average flow rate of 2.1 gallons per minute (gpm) (7.9 lpm).'
Ok so I'm not actually American but I'm sure their showers can't be much different than ours. On with the tips!
Step one, reduce the amount of time I take in the shower.
The first step was a pretty obvious one that I could implement straight away, take shorter showers... Out came the stop watch.
On a normal morning I shower for about 8 minutes, let's average out the Home Water Works estimate and say I use 65 liters of water a day (sorry America but I'm sticking with the metric system). After some speedier showering I got this down to 6 minutes. I was super happy with that but thought... 'next'.
Take a 'navy shower'
Being a kid at heart the
navy shower
appealed to me. The basic premise is when you soap up and have a good scrub, turn the shower off. Quite simple. So I gave it a go and shaved another 45 seconds off my shower.
So how much water has step one saved? After some calculations (which can be found at the end of this article) I estimated I would save:
14.2 Liters every day! That's just shy of 100 liters every week :)
Apparently the average person needs 2 liters of fresh water everyday, so in one week I have saved enough fresh water to keep around 50 people tanked up for a day! Sweet!
I did also wonder how much money I could save and found the great video below from Thames Water. for every minute saved in the shower I potentially could be saving around £48 per year for a family of four (water and using my boiler combined). Quids in!
Now all I need is one of those sand timers to ensure I stick to my new routine and to try to get my shower time down to 4 minutes.
Step two, water–saving shower heads
Another way you can easily save water while showering is to switch your shower head for a low flow eco shower head. According to
Which, you must first check how much water your shower head is actually using to see if it is worthwhile buying an eco shower head.
'To check whether you could cut your water usage, put a 2-litre container on the shower floor. If it takes less than 12 seconds to fill when the shower's running on full, a low-flow or water-saving shower head could benefit you.'
We gave this a try and found that actually our shower head was pretty good, we also found that by simply 'turning down' our shower pressure (we are lucky to have a wall mixer shower where we can adjust the flow rate) the water usage was also reduced. We therefore decided that reducing our shower time and turning down our flow rate was ok this time.
If you are interested in buying an eco shower head (more for electric showers) a great start is the
Which
website round up of Eco Shower Heads.
Step three, bucket time!
Finally a great tip while you wait for your shower to warm up. Don't waste all that lovely water, stick a bucket under the shower, save the water and use it to flush the toilet or water the plants. Every little helps!
