Low Flow? Life's Too Short For One Reader
Speaking of going green…there are plenty of different opinions that get expressed in the Brownstoner Forum, some more eloquently than others. One particularly aphoristic statement recently struck us as an interesting jumping off point for discussion. In a post on water billing, one anonymous reader opined that, “Life is way too short to live with…
Speaking of going green…there are plenty of different opinions that get expressed in the Brownstoner Forum, some more eloquently than others. One particularly aphoristic statement recently struck us as an interesting jumping off point for discussion. In a post on water billing, one anonymous reader opined that, “Life is way too short to live with a low-flow showerhead.” The next response in the thread countered, “And life on earth will be a lot shorter for all of us if we have that attitude about resource use.” One website we looked at said that hot water usage can account for 25% of a household’s enery costs and argues that a low flow shower head can reduce hot water consumption by half without reducing the pleasure factor. So what do you think? Where do showerheads fit in the spectrum of environmental no-no’s? Those of you that don’t have low flow, is it out of laziness or an unwillingness to compromise on shower quality.
Water Billing Frequency [Forum]
Low Flow Shower Heads [BC Hydro]
I can understand why people think it’s a hippie thing to conserve energy, water, etc. That’s how it’s presented, more often than not: as an optional lifestyle choice, one that’s more about morality than anything else. And honestly, I don’t see how one particular household deciding to use a low-flow showerhead or not is really going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. I think we’re headed for large-scale ecological disaster, with or without our attempts to green our country one house at a time. Large-scale efforts (like WalMart’s push to get us all using compact fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent) are really encouraging, but still.
Whether or not it’s the right choice, whether or not it saves us $300 a year on our heating bill, we’re all going to have to consume less energy and other natural resources some time within our lifetime. We’re all going to be forced to. There simply aren’t enough natural resources to keep chugging along, taking daily showers, running the AC, driving cars everywhere, etc, as we have been. There’s not enough oil, there’s not enough natural gas, and there’s not enough fresh water (speaking of that, it’s borderline insane that we use drinking water to flush our toilets) to support our current population, much less future population growth.
Why do you think this has become such a big issue lately? Why do you think our government is subsidizing the ethanol industry? Our government never acts on anything until it’s almost too late to make any difference, and they certainly don’t act on anything that might upset the way the economy is run (on oil).
When you do just a teensy bit of research into the issue, you realize: hippies or not, we’re all screwed, and our government has realized that. I don’t see any way around it, we’re all going to be forced to use less energy and less water in the future, whether through more blackouts (the grid is outdated, overloaded, and we’re not doing anything to fix that fact) , skyrocketing prices, or 70’s-style rationing. Might as well start practicing now.
Best low flow shower head is the Oxygenics one sold at Sharper Image.
Not only does it makea weak shower feel strong, but it makes a strong shower feel like a waterfall.
Much better than the Incredible Showerhead, in my opinion.
10:55 AM — you might want to reconsider the use of the dish washer. Research shows a lot less water is used by running a fully-loaded dishwasher than hand-washing the same number of dishes… that is, IF you don’t pre-rinse the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.
Of course, if you live alone, and the dishwasher is kinda crappy, you need to pre-rinse so food doesn’t become encrusted on the dishes so badly the dishwasher can’t clean well.
Me? I live alone but have a brand new dishwasher that does an excellent job. I don’t rinse, I run the dishwasher as full as I can (about once a week) and I think I do a pretty good job saving water (though I do sometimes ge ta stench coming out of the dishwasher towards the end of the week when I open it — it depends on what food was eaten off the plates.)
Ive been using a low-flow showerhead, similar to the one in the illustration, for over 30 years. I got it because my house had a tiny 30 gal.water heater and we were frequently running out of hot water–it solved that problem. We’ve been using larger water heaters for years, since that antique wore out, but I see no reason to change shower heads. IMO it works fine and may be one of the reasons that my gas bill is pretty low.
Whenever I have to use a low flow showerhead in someone else’s house, I always take much longer to shower since it takes so much longer to lather up and rinse. Using a regular shower head, I’m in and out in 3 mins. or less. So I figure it works out evenly.
Low flow? I don’t like the sound of that…
You can get 3-way compact fluorescent bulbs. Here are some at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Globe-0790401-Compact-Fluorescent-Spiral/dp/B000GBBUF2
all you hippies saving resources just leaves more for me to consume…
😉
How are those big rainshower sunflower shower heads with water consumption? I recently noticed that 2 of my tenants installed these in there bathrooms.