What Is A Low Flow Shower Head? All You Need To Know

June 18, 2022
 | By 
Michael McCullers

Have you been tired of paying large amounts of water bills of late? Switch to a showerhead with a low-water flow rate to save energy and money each month. A low-flow showerhead saves you money at the end of the year and lowers your monthly water bill.

You can also save money on your utility bills by using less water and the useful low-flow showerhead features. Moreover, it cuts down carbon dioxide emissions.

How Do The Low Flow Shower Heads Work?

The name suggests that low-flow showerheads use less water than standard showerheads. For both economic and environmental concerns, this is done. Exelon states that a showerhead can only dispense 2.5 liters of water per minute and ensure proper energy usage for a showerhead to be classified as low-flow.

Use Of A Low FLow Shower Head

You can significantly reduce your monthly water and heating water costs by installing low-flow showerheads instead of luxurious showerheads. Additionally, they help to preserve water resources. Reduce the amount of desalinized seawater used for drinking and washing by taking shorter showers and using less water overall.

If you don't need to desalinate water or rain shower, you save money and the environment, which is a win-win situation. Low-flow showerheads provide a forceful spray while using less water by either adding air to the water to reduce the quantity of water consumed or forcing water through smaller apertures.

Both showerheads help you save money on your utility bills by conserving water. On the other hand, we like showerheads that do not aerate the water. These are a terrific purchase because they help you save money while also improving the water pressure in your shower.

The Benefits Of Using Low Flow Showerheads

The Low flow showerhead features help its users with a lot of benefits, including:

Every Drop OF Water is Important. So, Try to save it

An obvious benefit is Water conservation, which has turned into a worldly movement. The World Environmental Protection Agency implemented a program to promote more responsible water usage and encourage the installation of low-flow showerheads. It's no laughing matter when you consider that installing just one of these in your home might save your family thousands of gallons of water over a year.

Showering accounts for around 20–30% of the household water usage, so it's a great place to start when making environmentally-friendly changes and saving up on energy bills.

Showerheads with a low flow rate can save up to 40% of the water consumed in the shower. This helps the environment by reducing water consumption, but it also decreases your monthly water bill, resulting in significant savings over time.

Because heating water for showers requires energy, minimizing the amount of water utilized minimizes the energy needed. You might save up to fifty dollars per year on your heating costs. Additionally, it leads to lower carbon dioxide emissions.

As a result of the reduced demand for hot water, the amount of energy consumed decreases, resulting in less carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. With a low-flow showerhead, some of the features that let you customize your shower had to go. If you want to improve your shower experience, you can choose from various options and add-ons these days.

Timer

If you tend to lose track of time when relaxing in the pool, a timer might help you stay on track. You can set low-flow showerheads to tell you when to rinse, rinse, and rinse again.

It's nice to step out of the stream to grab a washcloth or lather up your hair without wasting any water. Using Pause, you can turn it off for a short time and then turn it back on at the same temperature.

Taking Charge Of The Stream

Even if your shower head has a low-flow rate, you can still have a stream that changes. With different nozzles, you can change the style of the water to pulse, mist, or stream. Showerheads can be held in your hand or mounted on the wall. They can be mounted on the wall with or without something to keep them in place.

Aeration

Aeration is the process of adding air to water to make it move faster. An aerator keeps the stream steady most of the time, making the water flow more smoothly and with less splashing. This is a great way to keep the strong spray while using less water.

But you can turn off aeration on low-flow showerheads if you want a more potent spray or one that pulses or massages your skin. Now that technology has improved, low pressure doesn't have to mean low flow.

Temperature Control

There won't be any more running water as you try to get the temperature just right. It keeps the stream at a trickle, so you don't have to wait for the water to get hot or change the temperature to get the shower setting you want.

How To Choose A Low Flow Rate Shower Head?

Choose a showerhead that uses less than 2.5 gallons of water per minute (gallons per minute). You'll have to decide if you want a showerhead that adds air or moves water in a straight line. When water is "aerated," it is mixed with air to make a spray that looks like a mist. A shower head with laminar flow sends water out in many separate streams.

Most of the best low-flow showerheads today come with flow restrictors. Using a flow restrictor, which lets more or less water through the lines, you can control how much water flows through the lines based on how much water pressure you want.

But there are a few things you should know before you start shopping for energy-efficient shower heads to have a satisfying shower. How much water does a standard shower head put out per minute? A showerhead could give out anywhere from 5 to 8 gallons of water per minute at one time.

But if people took eight-minute showers, that would use 64 gallons of water per shower. Federal laws say that a showerhead must have a maximum flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute (GPM) and a minimum water pressure of 80 pounds per square inch (psi) (pounds per square inch).

A Technical Overview On Low Flow Shower Head

Showerheads used to deliver between 5 and 8 liters of water per minute until recently (GPM). A Low Flow showerhead provides 2.5 gallons of water per minute, or a lower flow showerhead dispenses 2 gallons of water per minute or less per minute. Put a one-gallon container in the shower, turn on the water, and see how long it takes for the container to fill up completely.

This is a quick and easy technique to see if your current showerhead is wasting water. If it takes 15 seconds to fill up, the flow rate is approximately 4 gallons per minute (GPM). The flow rate is probably approximately six gallons per minute if it fills up in ten seconds. If you have a low-flow head, it should take twenty-four seconds.

If you want to switch to a more ecologically friendly and sustainable shower accessory, consider these benefits of choosing a low-flow kind. A low-flow shower does not imply a low-quality pressure setting of the shower stream.

Older low-flow showerheads were less efficient than their more modern equivalents since they reduced water pressure to a trickle. The more current models use a combination of tighter apertures and air to generate higher pressure, resulting in a more pleasant shower experience.

You gain several advantages when you move to a showerhead with a lower water flow. Early low-pressure issues in older versions have been addressed in more recent models, which many users have considered an improvement. Due to the cumulative annual cost reductions, a new model will have more than covered its initial investment in the first year alone.

FAQs

How do I know if my showerhead is a low-flow one?

Most of the time, the best way to find out if your showerhead has a low-flow rating is to read the labels around the rim. If the number of gallons per minute (GPM) written on your showerhead is 2.5 or less, it is a low-flow showerhead. A high-flow showerhead says 2.6 GPM or more on the label.

Even if your showerhead doesn't have a label, you can use this method to figure out how fast the water flows. Put a bucket or container with a one-gallon capacity marking under the showerhead. High-flow showerheads can fill a gallon of water in less than twenty seconds. It has low flow if it takes more than twenty seconds to finish.

Why does my shower head not have any pressure?

If you chose a water-saving showerhead, the pressure in your shower might have dropped after you put in a new one. Follow the steps below to test the GPM or look at the labels on the rim. If the flow rate of your current showerhead is less than the legal maximum, you may want to switch to a stronger one.

Even if you put in a new showerhead, you may still have low water pressure if the pipes are clogged, leaking, or broken, or is something wrong with the shower controls. In this situation, the best thing to do is call a professional plumber to look at your plumbing and fix any broken pipes or devices.

Call Jet Plumbers For The Best Low Flow Shower Head Related Services

We at Jet Plumbers have been providing the people with the industry's best low-flow shower head installation services. We are a highly professional plumbing service provider within Arvada, Co area. We provide drain cleaning, leak repair, garbage disposal installation, etc. Call us today to get a free estimate about our services.

Our Location: 5511 W 56th Ave Ste 220 Arvada, CO 80002

Contact us by calling at 720-538-9961