Your showerhead is lying to you

[Mosby]

-snip-

Intrepid researchers at the University of Surrey had placed sensors in 290 showers around campus, recording data for 39 weeks from 86,421 individual shower sessions. “Water consumption,” the study found, sensationally, “was reduced by up to 56% with high water pressure.”

The researchers, seeming puzzled by the results, recommended more study. But they also offered a theory along these lines: When a showerhead delivers a good, fizzing spray, people pop in and briskly get their business done, unlike when faced with a drizzle that prompts them to wonder if the Head & Shoulders will ever be adequately washed off their head and shoulders.

One researcher, perhaps trying to reassure eco-warriors distressed by the news, noted: “The best of all worlds is high pressure, low flow.” This is true, just as in the cake realm the best of all worlds is having it and eating it too. The showering ideal might be achievable in controlled laboratory conditions, but we all know what happens in the tiled wild.

This is where I confess to having lived as a U.S. regulatory renegade since 1992, when the Energy Policy Act imposed a federal mandate restricting showerheads to a flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute. (In Britain, where it rains more than is strictly necessary, the government doesn’t dictate showerhead flow rates, which simplified matters for the University of Surrey researchers.) Showerheads with flow restrictors were installed all across America, nowhere more gleefully than in New York apartment buildings, where landlords pay the water bills. (The super at the door: “Sorry, the feds said I gotta do it. Anybody in the bathroom."

Oh, I tried to comply. Taking dismal showers, pawing shampoo across my hanging head, under a spray that felt like 2.5 gallons per annum. Down the drain swirled my hopes and dreams, with a hint of sandalwood and eucalyptus.

Then one day, damp and desperate, I furiously unscrewed the showerhead, found a sharp object and extracted the flow-choking gasket-and-screen device. I swear I wouldn’t have done it if I lived in the parched Southwest, but an invigorating blast from the Catskill/Delaware watersheds was irresistible. Little did I know then that I was speaking truth to shower.

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[sinkingfeeling]

1. Is that you, Donald?

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Not unless you are the author of that article.

[pansypoo53219]

2. wrong shower head. i go w/ a motel all metal boring, but has, well, used to have pelting setting, now just deluge.

gave up washing hair in shower. sink better.

[Tickle]

3. I have great showers where I

live, now. I also have well water, so it's one less bill I have to worry about.

[yardwork]

5. I confess that I did this too!

I didn't have to vote DJT into office to take it on myself to remove the low-flow shower head device.

I guess MAGATs needed "daddy" to do it for them.

[NutmegYankee]

6. The better question is who HASN'T pulled the plastic piece out

If you live where it gets 50 inches of rain a year, it makes sense.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. This Makes Sense To Me

Velocity is a major factor in removing residue. That's why power washers are effective.
The problem is, that the showerheads & associated piping have insufficient supply pressure, so velocity correlates directly to volume.
Buildings/homes would need to booster pump to get both pressure & reduced volume, in many (most?) cases.
Our incoming water pressure is only about 29psig. To get high pressure at limited flow, we'd need to boost that at least 10psig. We had one installed for our sprinkler system (which we no longer use) that took the pressure up to 55psig.
Because we got coverage much more easily I kept cutting back the time each zone watered. Our water bill went down more than 8 %.

[MerryBlooms]

8. We use the hand held adjustable shower heads

In both showeres. My 81 y/o sister uses a very low flow setting, us 2 other sisters, med flow settings. The shower heads can be left mounted, or removed for hand held, bench showers. Adjustable flow works for us.

[MineralMan]

9. I used to travel a lot. My answer to crappy hotel showers

was to keep a simple, basic showerhead in my checked bag, along with an adjustable pliers. If the hotel had a crappy showerhead, I'd replace it with mine each time I showered, and put their back on. It didn't take up much space in my luggage, but sure let me enjoy my shower.