The Guide To Highly Efficient Things
From the category archives:
A solar shower is a fun and highly efficient device for summer. It operates by attaching a standard garden hose to the shower — water is heated inside an integrated solar-thermal tank. After 1-2 hours the water will be hot enough for a shower. Solar heated shower are also handy for camping — you can find portable solar showers here. [Click to continue...]
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I’ve been testing the Road Runner low-flow showerhead, which is rated at 1.59 gallons per minute. Currently, it’s my favorite showerhead, beating out my previous favorites: the 2GPM Oxygenics showerhead, and the 1.75GPM Nigara Earth Massage showerhead. The Road Runner has a unique feature: it has a built-in sensor that detects when the water gets warm enough for showering (95° F or 35° C), and then it “pauses” the shower by reducing the water flow to a trickle. [Click to continue...]
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Low-flow showerheads are efficient. They can significantly reduce your household water consumption without a noticeable difference to your shower experience. The term “low flow” is generally defined as a showerhead with a water consumption rate of 0.5 to 2 gallons per minute (gpm). Here’s my review of what’s available:
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NewMarket Naturals makes modular shower filters which can accomodate some of the more efficient showerheads out there. They also make a April Shower filter which is compatible with the Oxygenics showerhead we recently featured. Available from: NewMarket Naturals.
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David Okada, a MetaEfficient reader, wrote to us to say that he’s compared the Oxygenics shower head, with another low-flow shower head from Bricor. David says Bricor had better spray at lower flow rates and was quieter than the Oxygenics (recently featured on MetaEfficient here).
Bricor offers a range of low-flow shower heads, including one rated at 1.0 GPM.
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The Oxygenics showerhead is definitely worthy of inclusion here. With a nifty design, the showerhead is able to take low pressure water and transform it into a forceful stream for showering. It does this while using just 1.5 gpm (gallons per minute). It adapts to variable water pressure, and any water pressure from less than 20 psi to 100 psi.
Internal mechanisms also enrich the shower water with oxygen. It also comes in a 2 gpm hand-held design. The hand-held version sells for about $45, the showerhead version sells for $30-60.
Available from: Amazon ($29.97)
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This looks interesting — it’s a solar shower that heats 5 1/2 gallons of water with a built-in solar collector.
Created in Europe, the imported shower is able to heat water to 140°F in 1-2 hours in sunny weather. The manufacturer claims that the shower is capable of capturing heat from the ambient temperature in the air on hot, but cloudy days.
It hooks up to a regular garden hose, and allow you to adjust the water temperature from warm to cold (cold water is delivered directly via the garden hose).
It can bolted to wood or cement, and is designed to be unbolted easily for portability.
“Belvisi Solar Shower” available from: Pool Products and other retailers (around $398)
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This was my first low-flow showerhead, and it’s still one of my favorites. The Earth Massage showerhead produces a fine spray or pulsing jet but only uses 1.75 gallons per minute. It works consistently in both low and high water pressures. A “soak and soap” button reduces the flow rate to 1.0 gpm for soaping up and allows for the greatest amount of water savings possible.
The Earth Massage showerhead is available from Amazon
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