Low Flow Shower Heads Save Water, Energy and Money
Whether your making plans to harvest and save your own rain water or are just practicing frugal and environmentally conscious living, careful water use is a must. In 2001, the average Canadian used 335 litres of water each day in their home (Shrubsole and Draper, 2007). This is a huge sum that does not even begin to account for the water use associated with our lifestyle but it is a number I will use for now to keep things simple. I will also just focus on water consumption in the shower in this article even though there are many other areas in which to consider water conservation.
Let us begin by estimating the water use for a typical shower with a typical shower head. A common shower head will have a flow rate close to 10 litres/minute and let’s assume a typical person showers for 5 minutes. A simple calculation shows us a 5 minute shower with a standard shower head will use about 50 litres of water.
Next let’s figure out how much water we could save with a low flow shower head. A photo of my shower head is shown below. It is called the Lowest Flow Shower Head and has an impressive flow rate. At 80 psi it delivers 2.25 gpm as a maximum flow rate but under average conditions it will deliver more like 1.2 gpm. I wanted to know the exact flow rate of my shower head so I measured it myself by turning on the shower for 30 seconds and measuring the volume of water I collected in a pail in that time. In 30 seconds I collected 1.3 litres so that is a flow rate of 2.6 lpm or 0.7 gpm. Assuming I only buy the shower head and make no changes to my showering habits I have just reduced my water consumption by 75% to 13 litres/minute!
Low flow shower head
In addition to the low flow rate, this shower head also features a cut off valve. This allows to really scrimp and save by cutting off your water supply to soap up. Because the valve is right on the shower head you can turn the water on and off without having to adjust the water to the right temperature every time. Using this feature it is easy to shower at a relaxed pace with 2 minutes or less of water usage. With that low flow rate this feature and this shower head cut off valve I can have a comfortable shower with only 5.2 litres of water. I’d be hard pressed to sponge bath with less than that.
So it’s obvious that the water savings are possible but does this also save us a significant amount of money. My local cost for water usage is 0.036 cents/cu.ft. or 0.0013 cents/litre. If I use a standard shower head for a 5 minute shower every day for 1 year I would use 18,250 litres at a cost of $23. If I use my low flow shower head for a 5 minute shower every day for 1 year I would only use 4745 litres at a cost of $6. I bought this low flow shower head a few years ago for something like $8 so it has easily paid for itself and has been saving me money each day.
Wait! There are even more savings to consider. That water that was not used does not need to be heated now so there is also a savings of energy. The difference in water use for a year was 13,505 litres and each of those litres must be heated from an average ground temperature of about 7 degrees celsius to about 45 degrees celsius. It takes 4.2 KJ of energy to heat 1 litre of water by 1 degree celsius and let’s be generous and imagine you have a 100% efficient water heater. The heating of 13,505 litres of water from 7 to 45 degrees celsius would require 2,155,398 KJ of energy or 2,042,923 BTUs or 600kWh. I pay 11 cents/kwh here so that would mean a total cost savings of $66/year and bring the total cost savings to $83/year. Alternatively, heating the water with a 100% efficient natural gas boiler would mean paying 0.024 cents/kWh of natural gas for a lower cost savings of $14/year and a total savings of $31/year. The money saved for one person per year with relatively short showers may not be that remarkable to you but consider the savings with a family of 4 and with and perhaps with more generous 10 minute showers. The savings of water, energy and money begin to add up significantly.
Low flow shower heads did not seem to be very common even just a few years ago in Canada but even then they were easy to find online. Today, they are much more common. I recently saw a few low flow shower head models equipped with stop valves at Canadian Tire and if a product is at Canadian Tire you know it’s accepted as mainstream so you should not have any trouble finding one of these shower heads at your local plumbing or hardware store. Pick one up and try it out!
