My shower should have a gauge telling me how many gallons I've used so far this morning. For one thing, feedback is likely to encourage me to be more efficient; for another, I think some working brass gauges would be spiffy. I don't want Bloody Stupid Johnson's shower, but a few more levers and dials would be fine.

The ecological load of spiffy brass dials outweighs a lot of saved water... these should be reused dials, saved from upgrades to various now-digital control systems.
-- hello_c, Oct 07 2000

I'll ask my Pop. He managed a water district for 42 years.
-- thumbwax, Oct 07 2000


how about a really nice glass flow meter? when i worked for a pool company some old pools had them and i thought they looked so cool, because you could watch the little bead "float" up and down with the pressure.
-- wrenchndmachine, Oct 07 2000


[Pop's still gone for another month-life of a Capo di tutti capi, you know]I know this much-Change standard 4.5 gpm shower head to 2.5 gpm and put an aerator on kitchen sink. Total investment less than $10.00. Shower head change alone saves @5,000 gallons per user annually-That's 20,000 gallons a year for a family of four, folks. Either device reduces consumption %60%.
-- thumbwax, Oct 09 2000


thumbwax: Saving 5,000 gallons/year per user means that each user spends 2,500 minutes in the shower per year. That seems like rather a lot. Also, while good or bad showerhead design can affect things a lot, I read that people with anemic shower heads often take longer to feel clean (and thus shower longer, defeating the purpose of the lower-flow head).
-- supercat, Oct 21 2000


2,500 minutes per year is only 7 minutes per day, which is totally believable.
-- egnor, Oct 21 2000


The problem with flow restrictors in the shower is that it takes twice as long to get clean. I think they encourage much longer showers--they do in my case, anyway. I take a fast shower and the more I can dump on, the better.
-- bristolz, Oct 25 2000



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