Changing to a low flow showerhead can save you water, energy, and money at home, while making your community more sustainable.

Changing to a low flow showerhead can save you water, energy, and money at home, while making your community more sustainable.

Even though we live in the land of 10,000 lakes and abundant groundwater, there are good reasons to conserve water in Minnesota. The underground aquifers that we tap for our city water supply do have limits. The more water city residents use, the more energy the city needs to use to pump water out of the ground and distribute it to homes and businesses. One way that we can make our communities more sustainable is conserving water at home.

Showering uses about 25% of the water we use in our homes. So if you want to reduce the amount of water you use (and pay for) every month, installing a low flow shower head can cut your water usage, and you water bill and energy bill.

How much water does your showerhead use now?

That depends on the age of the showerhead.

Most shower heads sold in the past few years use about 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm). But shower heads from the early 1990s could use 5-8 gpm. More than double the current standard.

Not sure how much water your shower head uses? Then take a gallon jug and cut the top off. Hold it under your shower head and count how many seconds it takes to fill up. If it takes 15 seconds to fill up, then your showerhead is using 4 gpm. If it takes 10 seconds to fill the jug, then the showerhead puts out about 6 gpm. If it takes 30 seconds to fill your jug, then you already have a low flow 2 gpm shower head installed.

Since most people enjoy hot showers, using a low flow showerhead also saves you energy, since you probably use natural gas or electricity to heat water in your home. If you live in a home with a lot of family members, and you sometimes run out of hot water after several showers, installing a low flow shower head can save enough hot water so there’ll be some for you at the end of the day.

Choosing a low flow showerhead

When looking for a low flow shower head, be sure that it has the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Water Sense logo on it. That shows you that the showerhead uses no more than 2 gpm.

Installing a low flow showerhead

It’s easy to replace most shower heads.

1. Turn off the water. While toilets and most sinks have their own water shutoff valves, most showers don’t. To turn off water for your shower, you usually need to turn off the water main valve, usually found in your basement or utility room. You don’t want water spraying out of the pipe while you’re trying to install a new shower head.

2. Wrap the attachment end of the old shower head with a cloth and use a crescent wrench to loosen it. Then unscrew it by hand.

3. Clean off the pipe threads with an old toothbrush or a damp rag and apply new plumbers tape to the threads.

4. Screw on the new low flow shower head until it is tight. Wrap with a cloth and tighten with a crescent wrench if needed. Once attached, the new showerhead shouldn’t leak from the screw on attachment end.

5. Turn the water back on to confirm that there are no leaks and test out the new showerhead.

How Much Money Can You Save?

While there are a lot of variables based on water and energy costs in your community, but if you go from a standard 2.5 gpm showerhead to a low flow 2.0 gpm showerhead, you could save $50 in water an energy costs annually. If you have a 1990s era 5.5 gpm showerhead, then your savings could be $350 per year.

Watch a “Low Flow Showerhead” video about how to change to a low flow shower head at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyFAEYSa-rs

You can also contact the Home Energy Squad at https://www.homeenergysquad.net/ to find out about their low cost conservation audit which include having the Home Energy Squad install low flow showerheads at your house. Service starts at $70.

Kevin Strauss is Clean River Partners community engagement coordinator.

Data included is taken from the Minnesota Department of Health Daily reports. Because all data is preliminary, the change in number of cumulative positive cases and deaths from one day to the next may not equal the newly reported cases or deaths.

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Delivered Tuesday through Saturday mornings. 

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