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Friday, November 20, 2015

Saving water and energy with thermostatic showerheads

Getting the perfect water temperature of your shower can be a tricky and sometimes unpleasant process, especially on a cold winter morning. If it’s too hot, you may scald yourself.  If it’s too cold, you’re in for an uncomfortable shock to your body. For this reason, people will often turn the faucet on and wait for the water to reach a preferred temperature. This waste of water will cause an increase in your utility bills.
Thanks to modern technology in plumbing fixtures, you can cut back some of these expenses by installing a thermostatic shower head fixture.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), estimates that 35 percent of every shower goes to waste while the bather awaits the warm rising temperature. An average shower time of 12 minutes, with 2.0 gallons of watered per minute flowing through the showerhead means that an estimated 4 gallons of water will never be used. Aside from wasting water, you are also using up the energy to heat it up, causing double inefficiency. This is just a projected average – many people will often leave the bathroom after turning on the faucet, further wasting water and utility costs.
There are several plumbing factors that affect how long it takes for your water to reach your desired temperature – the distance from your shower to your hot water heater, water pressure, and the size of your plumbing pipes can cause you to have a longer wait time.  The bigger your home, the longer it will most likely take. If you are among those who walk away after turning on your shower, you are more likely to let water run on full heat before getting in. This is where a thermostatic heat sensing showerheads come to the rescue.
Several plumbing fixture manufacturers have installed built-in shutoff valves into thermostatic shower heads. For those who get distracted and walk away from the bathroom after the shower was turned on, you don’t have to worry about wasting hot water. The built-in valve will cut off the flow of water once it reaches a warm temperature.  Though you are still wasting water by allowing it to heat, you are saving excess heat energy as well.



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