One of the large consumers of energy is fresh water. If you have municipal water like me, the water has to be processed and pumped by the municipality, heated, only to spend a brief moment flowing down the shower drain. In fact, as I sat showering, I noticed that the vast majority of the time I spent doing activities like soaping, washing, and shaving, that the water just ran for no reason. If you have a well, you are still drawing groundwater from the environment, from the water table.
So, I thought back to the pleasant memories I had sailing in the Caribbean with my family. Showers on the boat were limited, because we only had so much fresh water on board. If we ran out, we had to dock at the yacht clubs, which were trés expensive! So, the showers were designed only to run water when you pulled.
For a week now, I have been letting the water warm up, rinse off, and turn off the water while I soap up. Brief blasts to rinse off my hands, face, etc. I figure I use perhaps 10% of the normal shower water.
And, do I really need a shower every day? Every once in a while (probably a couple times a month) I skip, like when I don't have any outside activities (and don't have to appear in public). Every little bit helps - and it seems decadent and wasteful to run a shower of hot water for more than 30 minutes, when I probably spend a total of 5 minutes of that time actually washing & rinsing.
What do you think?
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