Use of bath water in front of the shower

With a focus on conserving water and everyone who wants to go “green” these days, people are beginning to pay attention to some of the things they do every day and to consider the consequences of their actions regarding water use. Water. The vast majority no longer ignore or simply do not care about the resources of our planet. People are beginning to understand the finite nature of our water supply and the impact that water waste now will have on future generations. A simple and very practical question that people have asked is whether bathing consumes more water than showering.

For some, it seems that filling a tub once would consume less water than standing in a shower for 10-15 minutes. But there are others who believe that a shower of reasonable duration would require much less water than filling a bathtub. So who is right? Well the answer is “it depends”. To answer this question, we need to look at the type of shower head, the duration of the shower, and the resulting amount of water that both approaches use for bathing.

First, let’s get an accurate assessment of the water that will be consumed in a typical bath. A standard bathtub can hold between 33 and 42 gallons of water. There are larger bathtubs that hold more, but this is a very common size for residential bathtubs. For our comparison, we will use 30 gallons as the amount of water being used, as people do not fill their tubs completely due to water displacement and we want to make a fair and reasonably accurate comparison.

Then comes the shower data. This measurement requires us to make certain assumptions in order to arrive at a number. Not all shower heads dispense the same amount of water per minute, and not all showers last the same duration. Suppose an average shower lasts for fifteen minutes. Women may take longer than that and men will probably take less, but it gives us an average that is probably reasonable for our purposes and will illustrate our point. Now we will assume that you are using a modern low flow shower head that dispenses one gallon of water per minute. There are models that use as little as half a gallon of water per minute that would save even more.

So the bottom line is that an average bathroom will use about 30 gallons of water and an average shower will only use about fifteen gallons. It is obvious that the choice is quite clear for those who want to conserve resources, a shower is the way to go. Again, this is all based on the assumption that you are using a low-flow shower head. If not, what are you waiting for? Go to your nearest hardware store and buy one today. They only cost a few dollars and the difference it can make is substantial.

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