Last weekend I decided to go green and install a low flow shower head in my master bedroom. It was an easy decision since the city supplied me with a low flow shower head at no charge. Unfortunately it has had less than impressive results on a front I did not expect.
This 5 minute project to install a low flow MOEN shower head will save me $94.00 a year and on top of that it will save 2,993 gallons of water every year making me such a green fellow. You can read about all the math and how it works in my previous article.
I will be removing this MOEN low flow shower head for one simple reason, its horrible. The shower head drops our water flow from 2.5gpm to 1.5gpm and my wife complained almost immediately she was not able to wash her hair properly. Initially my response was ‘oh come on’ but after a week even I have had enough of it.
The lack of water pressure is making our normally ‘strong hot morning showers’, long,dreary and depressing hot showers. I compare it to a warm drizzle dripping down my back and it is frankly unbearable and depressing.
I am all for conserving and saving water but it is absolutely not the right choice when it causes issues with my wife and more importantly makes my nice hot morning shower a joke with a bad punch line.
The important thing to note here is that I am not giving up on water consumption I am just going to save water without the inconvenience of a miserable shower. After I install my 2.5gpm RAIN shower head this weekend I am going to install a Smart Plus Hot Water Pump which will save me 12,000 gallons of water per year and $194.00 a year which is over double the financial savings of my annoying Moen Shower head and six times the water savings.
The irony is that I did a writeup on the Taco Smart Pump months ago and instead of doing that I chose to do a shower head. Why? Great question let’s go back to the start. The shower head was free, it installs in literally 5minutes and saves significant water. Unfortunately for me it sucks which is why I am removing my low flow water head and will instead invest 1 hour in my mechanical room to a Smart pump installation.
My Brain Lounge 
Thanks for the great article. I’m planning to remove my low flow shower head too! It’s horrible! Can someone recommend a shower head they are happy with, please?
I have a Delta Rainhead shower head which is 2.5gpm and it works great. Not truly low flow but better then the 3gpm I had and much better then the 1.25 I put in and hated.
Check out http://www.bricor.com
They’re kind of pricey but for a reason: they’re the only low flow’s that really feel powerful enough. They’re used in a lot of hotels and college dorms.
Look into Nebia. They are not out yet but look promising (I am expecting two of them from their Kickstarter project).
I’m a mechanical engineer and for work I’m always telling clients/contractors that what they want to do or use isn’t per code or doesn’t have the right certifications (IAPMO, ICC, etc). So you’d think when I remodeled my home master shower I’d use a certified, listed, low flow, name brand shower head, but frankly they suck. Low flow shower heads are awful if what you want is an invigorating, powerful, shower to make you wake up in the morning, or to help you loosen up at then end of the day. I bought a 12″ rain shower head on Amazon, made in china, with no listings or test certifications, and without the required flow limiters that all US shower heads have, and I love it. Sure, its almost 3 times the flow of a low flow fixture (4.2GPM), and it means I use a lot of water for the shower, but I’m more than willing to pay higher water bills in exchange for having the shower I want. Somethings are worth being green for, but my shower is not one of them.
Dan love your comment it is so spot on. I learned the hard way how this particular green initiative was not worth it.
I am not an Engineer but I work with Engineers daily and do field commissioning as well as real world system design. I am the guy that explains what the engineers want and why it needs to be that way to the trades 🙂