Save that shower water

Getting shower water to the desirable temperature is like a delicate art. It has to be just so, or the shower is ruined, right? Getting the ideal temp usually involves running the shower for any number of minutes, depending on your shower situation. In my old apartment (on the 3rd floor of an old house) it took what seemed like forever to warm up, and sometimes never really did. In my place now, it heats up pretty quickly, which then presents another issue–am I ready to get in the shower when the shower is ready for me? Sometimes yes, but sometimes I’m still removing make-up or brushing my teeth or whatever. And some people, who will go unnamed, seem to run the water while they go and make a sandwich, or at least do something that would take the same amount of time. All of that lovely clean water is literally going down the drain while we putter around!

I’ve definitely been working on being as quick as I can to get in the shower (and get out) to save those precious drops. But, I just found out about a smart new development in shower head technology that I think is pretty awesome. It’s called the Roadrunner shower head, here’s what it does: You turn on the shower and it runs until it’s at a nicely warm temperature; then it automatically reduces the water stream to a mere trickle until you pull a cord to resume the full flow. It’s a low-flow showerhead, saving even more water, but the water pressure looks pretty impressive (as opposed to the flat hair-causing piddly droplets that Seinfeld suffered).

The company that developed the Roadrunner says that it saves about 8 gallons of water for every five minutes in the shower. That’s equal to almost 3,000 gallons of water per person each year. At $40 the price isn’t bad and they claim that it will pay for itself in two months in savings on utility bills.  It looks like they’re out of stock and backordered right now at a number of sites; I guess they’re getting popular! 

I hope the next shower head they come out with will be one with the same technology, but that does the trickle thing from the moment you turn it on, even when the water’s cold. Now that would save even more water, and cut down on the pre-shower stress!