A hot shower is the guilty pleasure From Saskia. Showering for five minutes a day is the goal, but it usually turns into eight. OK, and sometimes ten. And so she took on a shower challenge with herself and gave herself a shower budget of 15 minutes a week. Will it work?
Shorter showering
Why do I always manage to shower within five minutes at the campsite - including washing my hair - and abandon this good gooey habit a little too often at home? Apparently, our five-minute shower hourglass is less compelling than the camping shower that cuts out after five minutes (brrr). On the one hand, I'd like to take shorter showers at home and save gas and money, but once I'm in the shower I forget this good intention a little too often. Ah please, just a little longer....
I thought I was done with excuses and procrastination and so I went on shower rationing: 15 minutes of showering in one week. That's 2.14 minutes a day or five minutes three times a week or 15 minutes once a week. How I budget is up to me. As long as I don't exceed those 15 minutes. I decide to keep showering (almost) daily - which is nice - and look for ways to do it faster. It yielded some nice insights.
Energy consumption when showering
When you shower, you consume gas. Gas is needed to make that shower nice and hot. The longer and hotter you shower, the more gas you consume. The shower session of an average Dutch person lasts eight minutes. If you shorten this ritual to five minutes a day, you will save around 35 euros a year on your energy bill (may vary slightly, depending on the price you pay for gas). If you're a family with two children, then that saving can add up considerably so. If you are already a short showerer: going from five to two minutes in the shower will result in smaller savings, because most of the gas is used to heat up the shower. Want to know more about your gas consumption and how to reduce it - besides showering. Then take a look at this handy list of tips!
Shorter showers and other energy-saving tips for the shower
Through this challenge, I discovered a number of #lifehacks in the shower. Or well, not literally in the shower, because that musing would take too much time. I didn't come up with these handy shower rituals all by myself. Again, I could finely count on help from my Instagram community.
Tips to take shorter showers
- An hourglass in the shower is a great start. But I have to confess that the five-minute shower hourglass does sometimes run down in silence. And then you accidentally showered longer than planned anyway. An effective way to really cut down on showering: put on your favourite song and agree with yourself that you will not shower longer than this song. Choose a song that lasts two to three minutes maximum (so not Paradise by the Dashboard Light).
- Washing hair, shaving body parts... Do you have too many rituals in the shower and those five minutes are so over because of this? Turn off the shower in between. For instance, I have found that I can save over three minutes of shower time by doing my shaving ritual and part of my hair washing without running water. Just fine in the summer months. Ask me again in winter.
- Make shorter showers a game. At home, we use EnergyFlip, an energy consumption manager with handy app that shows you live how much energy you use. So you can see how much money you spent after each shower. For example, an average shower before my challenge cost about 20 cents. During my challenge, on good days I spent less than ten cents per wash. This reward works very motivating! See more about my experience with EnergyFlip.
- Want to know exactly how long you shower? Then use the stopwatch on your phone and put your phone away dry in a visible place in the bathroom. Also, with a bit of quick mental arithmetic, you can see how much time you save if you turn the tap off and on in between showers.
- Don't dawdle when showering: get everything you need ready beforehand, undress, turn on the tap, get in the shower immediately and start your shower ritual. With too slow a start, you literally lose minutes!
- Be critical of your sustainable beauty products. Does it take you more time to rub yourself with a block of soap or does it take you more time to rinse a natural good like apple cider vinegar out of your hair? Then stop doing this! Taking shorter showers is many times more environmentally conscious than using an ecological beauty product. Research by Babette Porcelijn (The Hidden Impact) shows that 86% of the impact of bathrooms comes from hot water consumption of the shower and bath. Absolutely not from beauty products (3%).
Using less hot water
Ultimately, taking shorter showers is a means of using less hot water, but there are more ways to bring down your gas consumption in the shower:
- Research whether your shower tap has an eco setting and start using it from now on. This is indeed a weaker spray than you are used to, but you will immediately save on your water consumption without shortening your shower time. Some shower taps save as much 50% water on this energy-saving setting.
- Have you checked if you have a water-saving shower head yet? This shower head uses less water per minute because (more) air is mixed with water. The result: a comfortable jet and still use less water. Swapping a regular showerhead for a water-saving showerhead will save you around 20%. If you have a rain shower now, it could even save you 60%. See a handy overview from Milieu Centraal of water-saving showerheads here.
Collecting shower water
Another great water-saving tip from the community: ‘When you turn on the shower, it often takes a while for the water to heat up. Catch this water in a bucket, and flush the toilet with it! It may seem like a drag with a bucket of water, but once you get used to it, it's not too bad! Our water bill was lower last year!’
Florien, reader of thegreenlist.nl
More shower tips?
Do you also dare to tackle your shower ritual? Shorter showers, cold showers, less frequent showers: it all contributes to less energy consumption and a cleaner planet. I wonder what it will be. Showering is wonderful for you, not for the planet. And for your skin, getting in the shower every day isn't necessary at all either. We'd love to hear from you!
More sustainable tips from thegreenlist.nl
- How to create an eco-friendly toilet? Read all about it in this article.
- If you want to know more about packaging, for example of your shower products, check out the article: The truth about plastic that I co-wrote with Milieu Centraal.
- More sustainable budget tips: sustainable washing and all about washing machines.
- Open the hunt for energy guzzlers in your home with these tips.
Sources: Milieu Centraal. Photo credits: Karolina Grabowska (Pexels).
