It Seems to Me: You are in a Seinfeld episode

By Joe LaFiandra

You may not realize it, but you are in a real-life episode of a Seinfeld sitcom—The Shower Head. The show characters were upset because of the limited water flow from recently installed shower heads in their building.

Yes, in real life, the Federal Government has also recently reinstituted the water flow requirements for all shower heads sold in this county back to 2.5 gallons/minute (g/m).

In real life and the sitcom, the water flow from the new shower head being used is inadequate, the characters in the sitcom can’t get enough water from their shower heads to wash and rinse their hair.

In the show, Newman has found a solution: buy shower heads made in the former country of Yugoslavia on the black market. Kramer picks a super powerful shower head that was designed for washing elephants with the result of him being blown out of the shower when he turns it on.

This is of course a fictional outcome, but in real life there are concerns about the lack of water flow from the newly required shower heads that have people trying to find a solution. To understand the significance of changing the water flow of the government-mandated shower head flow, we have to do some basic calculations of water use in the U.S.

Let’s examine the 2.5 g/m requirement. The dirty little secret is that that number is specified at 80 pounds per square inch (psi), which is a higher number than what most water systems work at. Most water system pressures range from 40 to 60 psi. This means the water flow will be less than 2.5 g/m or closer to 1.6 g/m typically.

So the government is misleading you about how much water you will be getting out of that new shower head. Incidentally, California is also implementing additional restrictions that reduce the water flow to 1.8 g/m and less from the original 2.5 g/m.

You don’t have to get a Yugoslavian shower head to increase the water flow of your shower head. If you want to increase water flow in your shower head, all you have to do is remove the restrictor or replace the restrictor with one that permits a larger water flow.

 I could not find any law preventing you from doing it or penalizing you. In fact, some plumbers do this without telling you when they replace shower heads in order to reduce call backs.

Increasing your water flow is not something to do without considering all the factors of your decision on society and your water bills. It is to be determined in your individual case, i.e., where do you get your water (well or municipal supplied) and where you live, i.e., in a desert region or rainy Pacific Northwest.

To clarify the water supply source situation, if you are on a well where the water is derived and returned to the soil (21-25 percent of households), this is the best situation for water conservation.

For example, the average shower takes seven minutes and uses 11.2 g of water. If you double the water flow from your shower then you will use 22.4 g of water per person per shower. If you assume that there are 2.5 persons per household, and they all take one shower a day that comes out to 56 g/day. This amount of water used and returned to the ground can easily be handled by a standard well-septic system. Remember, this is double the amount the government says you need. If you stick with the slow shower head you will be saving 23 g/day.

This is a simplified analysis of the water supply system, it becomes much more complex if you are on a municipal water system. Municipal systems derive water from both wells, reservoirs and rivers and discharge the water back into rivers and recharge basins (which return water back to the ground).

In most cases, municipalities don’t have enough recharge basins and the water is discharged to creeks and end up in rivers. Cost and soil conditions determine how much water is recycled. If we want to save more water, municipalities must return water to the ground, not throw it away in rivers.

So, how significant on the nation’s water supply would it be to take a shower with a high flow shower head? According to the government, 2/3 of the population take showers daily. If you count only those on municipal water systems which is 79 percent of the water supply, then the number of showers per day in the U.S. is 175 million. Multiply this by 11.2 g, and you would save with a low flow head 2 billion gallons. This also assumes that everybody has a high flow rate shower, which is a worst case situation.

In 2015 the government estimated that the total water usage was 322 billion/g per day. With 37 percent of that going for agriculture and 41 percent for thermoelectric power. The calculated 2 billion extra usage is 0.6 percent (in reality closer to 0.3 percent) of the total water usage in the U.S., a small price to pay for a warm relaxing shower, literally a drop in the bucket.