The 5 minute shower

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink! Well if like me you are living in Southern California you’ll know that we are in a water crisis. Over the last couple of seasons we’ve had to mandatory reduce our water consumption, in some places up to 15% of our normal water use. Living an eco-friendly lifestyle already this was no easy feet, but then our overall unit reduction was also less as we use less water than the “average” household. As such we’ve become masters of the “5 Minute Shower”. Lunching with girlfriends, or chatting with women in the check-stand line at the grocery store current conversation seems to always steer to the mandatory water restrictions and the hardships of watering the lawn less, to which I reply “no problem just shower less! 5 minutes I am in and out and done!”. Now never having been a girly-girl and not soaking in the tub for hours in fact I’ve always seen the shower as a waste of time that could be otherwise productively used so I was no time hog anyway but since the restrictions I am even quicker.

Save water in the shower

• Don’t turn the water on until you are ready and IN the shower, too much water and energy (to heat the water) is wasted by people turning on the shower whilst fully clothed and spending the next 2 minutes getting undressed.
• If you need to “warm up” the water then place a bucket under the shower head to catch the cool water, this can be used later. For example: to flush toilets or water plants
• Shower effectively – Wet hair, shampoo, rinse. Apply conditioner to hair, wash body with soap, rinse conditioner from hair and soap from body – and DONE! Really it can take even less than five minutes!
• Contrary to popular opinion or what shampoo bottles may say you DO NOT need to shampoo your hair twice! Again, there is no need to rinse and repeat. Not only does this waste water, it wastes hair product and isn’t good for your hair either.
• Install a low flow shower head. Some utilities are giving these away for free, check your provider. Using a low flow shower head can reduce your water usage by up to 70%.
• If you shave in the shower, then turn OFF the water whilst shaving and turn ON to rinse.
• You can use the ON/OFF principle for showergel/shampoo too to further reduce your water usage.

Remember too that for kids it can even be a game, and if you have a larger family the shower game can get quite competitive! Who REALLY spends more time under the shower head? Who REALLY uses the most water? Can you be in and out in 5 minutes? If I can do it, so can you! Bottom line we should ALL be doing our bit to save water and the 5
minute shower is a great way to start! We all do it daily so the impact
could be significant in energy and monetary savings.

dalgal | My Bio & Articles