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I keep wanting to swap out my shower head for something better in terms of water usage, but I have long hair and every time I find myself in a shower with a low flow shower head it takes me two or three times as long to wash my hair. Which leads me to the question: would I really save water this way?

I should just plug the tub and shower with a low flow one and then with a regular one and see which fills the tub more.

I found a shower head with an on/off button, its the sort for the bath taps. Its handy for cleaning the bath and I also use it for watering plants.

I live in Portland Oregon, which most folks think of as the land of "always damp"; in fact our municipal water fees are quite high, so I am always looking for ways to conserve water. While I already had a "low flow" hand-held shower in the bathroom, which works very well, I recently added an "on-off" switch to the handpiece, to allow for turning off the water while soaping up. While I am nothing like a plumber, I found that adding the hand held shower, and then later adding the switch, was not at all difficult

Since I already catch our shower water (in a large tub,inside the bathtub, water re-used to water our new fruit trees all summer) I was pleased to see that not running the water all the time during the shower uses about half the quantity. The on-off switch does allow a small amount of water to dribble out, so your shower hose doesn't burst.

can anyone recommend a nicely designed, low-flow, hand-held shower that they've actually installed and still love? thanks!

Like Sciencegeek, I have the same problem with long hair and low flow shower heads. The reduced water flow means that rinsing my hair and my body takes twice as long or longer, so I'm not sure there is an opportunity for a big water savings. My family has used the Shower Massage for over 20 years and we're happy with them. They are supposed to reduce water consumption while providing four spray settings with no noticible performance reduction.

Some low-flow heads are awful, but some actually make th emost of a low flow water heater as well. I use one that has the spary holes in a circly inside a cup. It is designed to spray larger drops primarily on the outside, so there won't be this one drizzle to the side that feels extremely cold. Being inside the cup means that the air pulled in by the shower stream comes from inside: warm air.

In contract, the trend to larger heads means that more cold air is pulled in, leading to less comfortable showers.

The trick is not saving water (smaller holes will accomplish this) but saving water while maintaining comfort. In my case, the limited water supply and the more efficient head actually meant more comfortable showers.

Of course I could just get a hair cut.

;)

I have the waterpic ecoflow shower head, similar to the one on the right; and it feels like a regular shower head to me. Unfortunately, I bought it as soon as I moved in, so I couldn't really tell you if it has made an impact on my water bill; however, because my house has old plumbing, it's got the hot water dial, the on off dial and cold water dial so I just twist it off when I'm not rinsing.

The big problem with many low-flow showerheads is that the spray becomes so fine that the hot water cools off before it even touches your skin, forcing you to use even more hot water. Not sure the water savings cancels out the extra energy used to heat the water.

I'd prefer to see more "graywater" use.

http://www.graywater.net/