Who doesn't love taking a long, hot luxurious shower sometimes--or maybe most of the time? But did you know that your shower is the biggest user of hot water in the entire house? A typical shower uses up a whopping 37% of a household's hot-water usage and contributing mightily to your energy costs. If you're interested in reducing your energy use and costs, shortening the time you spend showering is a great way to start.
What You Should Know
- Solely at the sink and in the shower, the average person uses 50 gallons of hot water a day.
- Making simple modifications to your family's showering, bathing, teeth-brushing and shaving habits can lead to big savings.
Easy Things You Can Do
- Take shorter showers. Have you ever timed yourself in the shower? An 8-minute shower is normal, but considering most older showerheads use 4 to 6 gallons of water per minute, you'll still be using up 32 to 48 gallons of water. Anything above 10 minutes wastes a lot of hot water. An 8-minute shower compared with a 10-minute shower will save approximately 300 gallons of water a month. But...
- Try to cut down your shower time even further - perhaps to 5 minutes - and see the savings in energy costs and water use really improve. Or, consider trying what many Europeans do who live in areas where water resources are scarce: Turn on the shower to soak your skin and hair, then turn off the water while lathering up with soap and shampoo. Then turn the water on for a quick rinse off and you're done in record time.
- Take fewer showers. In most countries in the world where water supplies are low, people are accustomed to showering once every other day or even less.
- Take fewer baths. Baths typically require 20 gallons of hot water, while a seven-minute shower with an efficient showerhead will use 14 gallons or less.
Source: You Can Prevent Global Warming: 51 Easy Ways (Jeffrey Langholz, PhD, and Kelly Turner), and 30 Simple Energy Things You Can Do To Save The Earth (The Earth Works Group and PG&E)