Apr 15, 2008 2:40 pm US/Eastern
3 On Your Side: New Shower Heads
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―
Would you like to drain the cost of your monthly water bill? Of course you would and you can if you install the right shower head. 3 On Your Side's Jim Donovan shows you which ones offer good savings and good performance.
A low-flow showerhead can save a family of four up to $45 a month in water and heating costs. "Everybody loves a good shower, but an old shower head that uses five gallons per minute or more can use up to fifty gallons for one shower," said Todd Kent with the Good Housekeeping Research Institute. "A home owner should really switch that out with a low flow shower that uses half of that," Kent added.
The Institute tested 19 shower heads that use less than two and half gallons per minute. The 2 gallons per minute Waterpik Ecoflow was the consumers' favorite.
Testers liked that this showerhead had three main settings, one is a massage, another an everyday use setting and the third a direct stream. It retails for $25.
Two products tied for second place. The $90 Kohler Mastershower Ecofficient and the $75 Bricor Elite, which had a very low flow rate. "The Kohler showerhead was a little more expensive, but it did have the fastest rinse time in our shampoo test," Kent said.
Since 1992, all new showerheads must have a flow rate of 2 and a half gallons per minute or lower. Older ones often had flow rates of 5 and a half gallons per minute or more.
Did you know that Americans use 1.3 trillion gallons of water each year just for showering? And if you have a dripping water faucet, fix it! One drop per second wastes 192 gallons of water per month.
RELATED LINKS:Waterpik EcoFlow
http://www.waterpik.com/Bricor B150
http://www.bricor.com/Kohler Mastershower Ecofficient
http://www.us.kohler.com/
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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