Saving Water – The Bath vs Shower Debate
If you don’t live in Southern England, chances are that you might not have noticed the water shortage problem in the UK, but you might have heard of the hosepipe ban and were left puzzled by London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone plea to Londoners to stop flushing the lavatory after relieving themselves! Two unusually dry winters have left the reservoirs only about half full in Southern England. In the Thames water region, around London, there has been less than 70% of the rainfall that was expected since November 2004.
The British are probably unaware that Londoners use an average of 165 litres of water every day, higher than the national average of 150 litres and about one-third higher than other European cities.
These must be depressing figures for any British household, but you don’t have to panic yet! By educating yourself about conserving water in simple ways, you can breathe easy and perhaps even use a hose or sprinkler to water your garden after all!
In this article, we’ll debate the big question–does it takes less water to take a shower or have a bath?
First of all, let’s take a look at a few facts:
# A full bathtub holds approximately 140 litres of water
# Standard shower heads dispense 20-60 litres of water per minute
# Shower heads with flow restrictors dispense 10-15 litres of water per minute
An average bath requires 100 to 200 litres of water. Depending on your showerhead and whether it has a flow restrictor in it and how long you shower, the answer could oscillate either towards shower or bath. The average shower of four minutes with an old showerhead uses 80 litres of water. With a low-flow showerhead, only 40 litres of water is used.