How much time do you spend in the shower? How much water do you use?

We like to save money anywhere we can. Yes, we are the kind of people who shut off lights when we leave a room (or never turn them on when entering). We have our thermostat programmed to turn the heat way down at night and all of the TV's, cable boxes and even computers are on switches that get totally turned off when the items are not in use.

These conservation measures definitely save us money, but money is only part of the motivation. We just don't like wasting anything. Yes, we do carry it to extremes at times: for example, when we use a paper towel, we let it dry and save it for reuse on tasks like cleaning spills off the floor or wiping the sink dry. There's no need for a perfectly clean towel when cleaning up the floor, is there?

Water usage is the place where waste really bothers me. My wife is a little more relaxed about it - she points out that we really don't use much anyway and that it doesn't cost all that much. I just feel differently - wasting water offends me.

It's not all that inexpensive, either. Our total water bill is a few hundred dollars a year and some of that water gets heated, which adds to our electricity cost. But how much and where could we save?

Saving water

We already have low flush toilets and we do follow the "yellow-mellow" methods. Our dishwasher and clothes washer are both new, water saving models.  I actually wish the dishwasher would use a bit more water, but there's nothing I can do to change that.

I only shave every two or three days (a fringe benefit of working at home), and don't use much water at that anyway, so we can't  save anything there.

But there is the shower, isn't there?

Shower water usage

Since the early 1990's, U.S. law has required low flow shower heads. Prior to that, showers could use 5 gallons per minute of use or even more. They are now limited to a more reasonable 2.5 GPM, which certainly should save a lot of water, at least on paper.

I say "on paper" because when people don't feel that soap is fully rinsed, of course they will just stay in the shower longer. There are also people who bypass these rules by simply installing multiple shower heads. Still, these shower heads likely have reduced water waste.

I checked my shower head out of curiosity. It is marked (in teeny, teeny letters) as 2.5 GPM, but as that rating is based upon a specific pressure, I wondered what it really puts out in actual use.

To find out, I used a kitchen timer and a 4 cup (quarter gallon) container. I ran the shower at the setting I would normally use, and then put the container under it while starting the timer. The 4 cups filled up in seven seconds, which would have meant 28 to 30 seconds to fill a gallon, which is 2 gallons per minute. That's less than the rated 2.5 GPM.

But how long are my showers? For that, I used the same kitchen timer over a week of showers. My shortest was 2 minutes and 40 seconds, the longest (which felt very luxurious!) was 6 minutes and ten seconds. Most were between 3 and 4 minutes, so on average I probably use 8 gallons per shower.

I didn't dare ask my wife to time her water usage, but I took some sneaky measurements and found that she isn't much different.

That shower water doesn't cost much. As we'll see later, it probably represents about 25% of our overall water usage, but I don't see how we can use much less. We could use those hand held shower heads that you turn off and on, or take "navy' showers (turning off the water while soaping up and only turning it on to rinse) but both of those methods leave you cold while the water isn't flowing. I know people who will put up with that, but we aren't that conscientious!

Still, if you Google around looking for how long people shower, you'll see that most people say they linger far longer. It may be that they really do, or they may simply have never actually measured it. Many may be thinking of their total elapsed time from walking into their bathroom to walking out - the shower water certainly isn't running all that time.

Hot water shower usage

The cost of the water itself is only part of the total cost. Some of that shower water has to be heated. How much of it?

That's not so easy to figure out. It will depend upon the size of pipes on the hot and cold water side and the temperature of the water as it enters the heater. Of course it also depends upon how hot you like your showers!

I scrounged around the web and found estimates of hot water shower usage from 40% all the way up to 73%. If the 73% figure is accurate, my 8 gallon shower is almost 6 gallons of hot water. So what does that cost?

Well, again, that depends on incoming temperature, how you are heating it and how hot you make it. There are a lot of variables.

However, there's not a lot we can do about that, either. Some people recommend keeping your water heater set lower, but that can lead to dangerous bacteria growing in your hot water tank. Taking colder showers is not something we are going to try, and as I think we are already close to minimum shower times, we are out of options.

Overall water use

There is one area where water use is optional, at least in my eyes. That's watering the lawn. If I had my way, the lawn would fend for itself: I don't like pouring money on it no matter how little it may cost.

Unfortunately, my wife disagrees. She points out that our highest water bill ever (which was from the summer months) was under $90 for three months. I counter with the fact that our lowest water bill (winter months) was $40.00 and after pouring that extra $50 out on the grass, most of it turned brown and died anyway, so what was the point?

Some of our neighbors have lovely green lawns. I see their sprinklers running even when it is raining. Their bills for the summer months can be $200 or more, which is an extraordinary number of gallons dumped to keep that grass green.

We have sprinklers, too. I have the control box shut off and only turn it on when my wife gives me a very hard time because it hasn't rained in weeks.

Our water bills are per 100 cubic feet used. One cubic foot is approximately 7.48 gallons, so a three month bill for 800 cubic feet is for just under 6,000 gallons, or approximately 67 gallons per day. As that is for two of us, it's pretty low when compared to more typical usage estimated at close to 70 gallons per day per person.

But there are those summer months. At peak, our usage has been as high as 2,000 cubic feet over three months, or almost 15,000 gallons, which is 166 gallons per day. That is only for a few months, so the average over the year is more like 90 gallons per day for the two of us - assuming my wife gets to water the lawn as often as she wants. As that's under 50 gallons per day per person, we are on the low end for domestic usage and can be a lot lower if I can convince her to just let the silly lawn go.

What about you?

Do you care about your water usage at all (many of my neighbors don't seem to)? Do you feel guilty if you use more than other people? Have you ever timed your showers or measured the actual water flow?

Does the fact that people like Warren Buffet are investing in water make you more likely to think about saving water?

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