Blue House Blog > January 2009 > Water heater overuse

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Water heater overuse

Posted: 1/16/2009 1:42:34 PM By Jeremy Stacy | 3 comments


Showering can be expensive when you have an electric hot water heater and a roommate who treats each morning shower like he's spent the last night traveling with Lawrence of Arabia.

How long does a typical shower last? I have no idea. How long SHOULD a typical shower last? Definitely shorter than the 25 minutes my roommate spent bathing this morning. This doesn't count the three minutes he spent brushing his teeth and the five minutes he spent staring at his face in the mirror.

Typically when I'm eating my breakfast and feeding the pets (the first things I do in the morning) the bathroom is wide open. When I grab my towel out of my bedroom, my roommate has mystically appeared in the bathroom. He's my home's version of Nightcrawler from the X-Men. He appears out of thin air and takes steaming hot showers that leave a fog thicker than those over the Thames.

When we receive electric bills, I'm very angry with him. Outside of heating your home, the water heater can be the second largest consumer of energy. It may be our first.

I think it's time for some action. There's many options for people wishing to put a timer in the bathroom, and I'm checking them out. There's simple options like the device sold on showertime.net, which lights up red when you've exceeded four and a half minutes to more oppressive options like The Shower Manager, "developed by parents for parents to stop their teen's excessively long showers cold."

Everybody has a tale of a sibling, child, dorm-mate or roommate that's bathroom power hungry. Care to share any?

Comments
Joy
I assume you'd like to stay on friendly terms with your roommate. I would suggest explaining the huge costs of constantly running the hot water down the drain, in a nice friendly but firm way. There are some items you can install that will help if he will be cooperative about the usage.

The first is an item you can get from almost any hardware store. They've been in existence for decades - my memory goes back over 50 years!

This site http://www.accentshopping.com/product.asp?P_ID=149689 calls it a shower cut-off valve, which is as good a name as any, I guess. It also has a picture of the item. You can probably get it cheaper at your local hardware store though, just print out the picture to take with you. I KNOW Ace Hardware stores usually have this item. They fit on standard shower arms, so no need to worry about a particular brand. It just restricts the flow, so there is no need to read - just the temperature when you turn it on and off.

It installs between the shower arm and the shower head, easily installable by a rank amateur. If it doesn't come with a spool of Teflon plumbing tape, you might want to get one of those too and ensure that your connections are tight. If your current showerhead is corroded onto the arm, it will be more difficult. Pad the jaws of any wrenches you use to avoid scratching your shower head.

This would be a great time to get a new low-flow showerhead too. This is the second item you might want to get in your water conservation efforts.

Once they're installed, then have your talk with your roommate, explain your concerns, and firmly tell him/her that you expect the shower flow to be turned off when they are not actively rinsing off, such as lathering up, shampooing, and/or shaving. He will probably spend the same amount of time in the bathroom, just not use as much hot water while he's in there. Some people move slower than others.

I know what you mean about someone materializing just when you want to use the bathroom. Probably you being up and moving around wakes that person up. Could you get up slightly earlier and hit the bathroom immediately so you get there first? I know we'd all like to have our own routines maintained, but sometimes you have to be proactive and grab your opportunities when you can. You might also want to think about whether this is just about the shower or whether you just don't like your roommate and this is just the latest in a string of reasons why you don't. Then decide what you're going to do about it.

If you like the roommate otherwise, but he refuses to follow the water use reductions, then yeah, I would move to the doing the dishes after ten minutes.
3/21/2009 3:43:37 PM
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Sharon
I live in New Mexico and here we have to conserve and I think maybe you could get a shower head that would use less water (a low consumption shower head) uses less water there for less hot water there for less electric useage at the water heater.
3/8/2009 3:20:57 AM
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Gail
Do your dishes 5 minutes after he gets showers. The water will be cold. Tough. If he wants to shower that much...let it be cold
3/7/2009 12:51:01 PM
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