How much can a low-flow shower head really save you?

With the drought and water restrictions in full swing - and warnings from local councils about heavy fines for excessive water usage - many homeowners are asking themselves, “What more can I do to save water?”

Craig Berman from Saving Energy says there is one more element you can look at - your shower. He says with the warmer weather well and truly here, most homeowners prefer to shower instead of bath. He says many may believe that showering uses less water than bathing, however, this may not be the case in many homes.

According to Craig, an average bath uses roughly between 100 litres to 150 litres of water for four people, this is assuming that the person who showers second, third or last tops up on a bit of hot water. That sounds like a lot of water doesn’t it? Well then, consider this...

Craig says the average showerhead uses up to 20 litres of water per minute. He says if you have a 5-minute shower, it is 100 litres of water right there, which is the same as having a bath, and that is just for one person.

If a family of four has to shower, each member having a 5-minute shower, this would use 400 litres of water, which is more than double the amount of water you would use in a bath.

Shower head volume test

Fortunately, there is an easy way to calculate how much water your shower uses.

To determine how much water you use, run your shower up to the temperature and pressure that you normally would and put a bucket under the shower for 15 seconds. Turn the shower off and measure how much water is in the bucket. From there, multiply the amount of water in the bucket by four, this will give you the shower flow rate per minute.

If you have a standard showerhead, there should be around 4 litres to 5 litres of water in the bucket, which will give you 16 litres to 20 litres of water per minute.

How much water does your shower really use?

Let’s assume that you have a family of four, and everyone showers once a day for 5 minutes. That’s 400 litres of water per day, of which approximately 40% is hot water.

That’s 160 litres of hot water per day - enough to fill a 150 litre geyser at least once a day.

In a month, that family would use 12 000 litres of water on a shower alone, and of that, 4 800 litres is hot water, which effectively means that your geyser is working to its full capacity once per day.

Over a year, the water usage will be 144 000 litres per year, of which 57 600 litres will be hot water. From a cost perspective, this would equate to around R2 630 per year - just for the shower.

From an electricity point of view, your geyser would take about 2 hours to heat water from tap temperature to 60° Celsius, and that would use around 8kW of electricity.

This means that every day, the geyser is using 8kWh for the shower alone. This is equivalent to 240kWh per month or 2 880kWh per year.

At approximately R1.75 per kWh at the current tariff, this would cost R5 040 per year just for the shower.

At this rate, a shower for four people once per day costs almost R8 000 per year. This is assuming that the family are having a shower only once a day.

So, what’s the solution?

The simple shower solution

First and foremost, homeowners should install an energy- and water-saving showerhead. A showerhead like the Cobra Pulse Massage Rose has a guaranteed flow rate of 9 litres per minute. This alone would cut the amount of water and electricity consumption you use in the shower by 55%.

It uses a special low-flow regulator that reduces the flow of water, without compromising your shower experience.

Many homeowners believe that installing an energy- and water-saving showerhead would leave them standing under a slow dripping shower. This is not the case, however, in fact, you wouldn’t even notice the difference.

You would, however, be saving a huge amount of water and electricity.

How much would you save?

Based on the numbers above, using an energy- and water-saving showerhead would mean that this family would save almost 80 000 litres of water per year, or R1 500. It would also save approximately R2 770 per year in electricity by simply installing a low-flow showerhead that costs R180.

Implementing a strict time limit on showers can also add to your savings. Instead of having a 5-minute shower, cut that down to a maximum of 2.5 minutes. Reducing the total shower time to just 10 minutes for this family would cut their usage to 90 litres of water for all four family members. That’s a savings of 78% on water usage alone, of that 90 litres, 36 litres is hot water.

Over a month, the shower would use just 2 700 litres of water, and over a year, 32 400 litres of water - saving more than 111 000 litres of water. That’s almost R2 000 in savings.

On the electricity side, where the usage was 160 litres of hot water per day, this is now just 36 litres. It would take four days of showering for the geyser to use the same amount of electricity, and this would save 78% of the cost per month.

With this strategy in place, showering would only cost R52 to R80 per month instead of R240, and R686 per year instead of R5 040.

That’s an annual savings of R4 354, plus the water saving of R2 000, which equals to R6 354 per year.

Lastly, if you want to save water, shower together. www.property24.com