Testing shower head flow rates
 

Well, I tried out my new free low flow 2.0 gpm shower head this evening. Here are the two heads.

Original head. It says 2.5 gpm max on it.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/house183.jpg


New low flow head. It says 2.0 gpm max on it.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/house178.jpg

Just to make sure it in fact did flow less water, I did some testing. To do this, I took an ice cream bucket I had laying around (1.125 gallons) and turned the shower on. I timed how long it took to fill it up with each shower head. Here were the results.

original shower head = 40 seconds to fill = ~1.69 gpm
new 'low flow' shower head = 35 seconds to fill = ~1.93 gpm

Aha! My original shower head which says 2.5 gpm max on it actually flows LESS than the one rated at 2.0 gpm max.

Then, I decided to play around just a little bit. On the original shower head there is an adjustment in the middle (see pic). This kinda lets you adjust the stream size that comes out of the head. So, I tightened it up and retested.

http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/house175.jpg



original tweaked shower head = 53 seconds to fill = ~1.27 gpm

I think we have a CLEAR winner here. I guess the lesson is make sure you test your new 'low flow' fixture before you trust it, and you might be able to tweak your existing shower head. I was able to get a solid 25% reduction in flow just by adjusting my current head.

Agreed!

We had a 2.5 gpm Max unit that actually did 3.5+ gpm.


Just test it

I tested our Delta water saving shower head last night as well as our new RoadRunner shower head. Both came in at approximately 1.44 gpm. I also tested three other shower heads and they were all close to 2.5.

i actually bought a low flow showerhead yesterday, but only because my other shower head actually broke on me. new one is rated at 1.5gpm. i'm not gonna do all the measure, but just the pressure difference alone makes it obvious that it's much lower flow.

i bought it at Target, and go figure it's not on their website. It was $30, i'm pretty sure it's Waterpik brand.

Let us know how you like it. Also, a picture would be great.

it's ok. i'll get use to the lower pressure. my wife isn't thrilled with it, but it does have a neat 'water pause' feature. I expected that it just stopped the water flow (mainly to keep your settings w/o turning everything off, and back on, while you lather, wash your hair, whatever), but it just cuts the water flow in ~ 1/2. It's a button on the handle itself you can press.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...e/IMG_9949.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...e/IMG_9951.jpg

My biggest 'waste' (and why i have the hose, not just a straight nozzle) is i can't stand the cold water hitting me, so i pull the shower nozzle down, let it warm up, then put it back up.

Bucket-test your washer too!
 

"Bucket-testing" works great for anything that uses water.

For a clothes washer, have several 5-gallon buckets ready for when the wash cycle empties, and again for when the spin cycle pumps out the rinse water.

Using this method, I found that my old washer used 35-40 gallons, but the new one uses almost exactly 20.

I bought the front-loading washer used (w/ matching dryer). The cost will be paid for in 1 year in savings on my water bill alone.

It still surprises me that many clothes washers now come with Energy Star ratings, yet I have never seen the specs for the washer in the store actually list how much water they use!

The hose is what I hate most about mine. It takes significantly longer for the shower to get hot when it has 5 feet of extra hose to go through and warm up.