DIY Life

With the swine flu in full swing and some sort of horrid cold roaming around my household, cleanliness is on the forefront of my mind this week. And after reading this article re: the transmission of bacteria on your shower head, I'd hope it's on the forefront of yours, as well. Luckily, our friends at ShelterPop have the scoop on how to get the cleanest showers in town.

A quick tip from the article? You can make a fantastic homemade shower cleaner with 1 cup of vinegar, 1/2 cup baking soda, 1 cup ammonia and 1.5 gallons of hot water. Be sure to use rubber gloves, scrub well (use an old toothbrush for those tough tiles!) and rinse with hot water. Wipe dry. Also, tackle your glass shower door with white vinegar to prevent streaks and mildew at the same time. Bonus!

After all, cleanliness is next to awesomeness, right?

"Necessity is the mother of invention," they say. They also say, "Build a better mousetrap." Well, I just stumbled upon a rather clever new shower head. Thought that whole market was done like a burnt T-bone steak, did you? So did I but... not yet, it seems.

The name of it is the It Just Makes Sense shower head. That whole low-flow shower head thing has been flogged like a dead horse, and like low-flow toilets, they leave a lot to be desired. So, Fred Rahaming took on the hot water conservation challenge in a different direction. Full blast hot water when you want it, just a trickle when you don't.

Conservation and rampant self-indulgence, all at the same time. Can't beat it with a stick!

It works kind of like those camp showers; just pull on the chain when you want hot water. In this case, the chain is hooked to a spring so that you can quickly disconnect it with one hand to keep the flow going. And it's DIY friendly; I installed it in five minutes flat.

Last spring I installed two on-demand electric hot water heaters in parallel. They worked wonderfully until this winter's cold temperatures pushed the ground water temperature lower than the rest of the year. We had no problem with hot water from our taps at about 1.5 gallons per minute but the shower just never got hot. The standard for new shower heads is 2.5 gallons per minute. We needed to reduce our GPM consumption by about 1 gallon in order to have hot showers.

I did a bit of research and found Bricor manufactures a number of sub 2.5 GPM shower heads. I contacted them about making a purchase and they replied with their pricing and told me to measure the pressure of the water at the shower head. I dutifully removed my shower head and threaded on $12 worth of parts from the hardware store to measure the water pressure. With that information and a model picked out I sent them payment via Paypal. They made my shower head specifically for me and my home's water pressure to achieve the desired PSI. A few weeks later I received it and put the new head in place.

The pros of the low flow shower head are that my water consumption is down. The on-demand hot water heater can easily keep up with the lower flow so I'm probably using less electricity as well. Reducing your water and electricity consumption is definitely nice! The pressure of the water coming out of the head is not noticeably less than my shower head off the hardware store shelf.

The cons of the low flow shower head are the expensive price up front (I'll admit, I probably chose their most expensive model), and a major lag in response from a change in temperature at the knob to the time the desired temperature comes out of the head. It also takes a long time for the hot water to reach the shower head from the heaters but I understand that the water used during that longer period of time is the same as before changing to the lower flow.

A less expensive but equally effective way to reduce water consumption and reduce the GPM rate to allow a heater to keep up with demand is to simply regulate the amount of water coming our of the shower head by not opening the valve the whole way.

For those that require a home shower that is 1) easily accessible without some kind of 'bump,' 2) treats your feet like a warm pair of houseshoes, and 3) can be done over time if you have an alternative shower to use, you might be interested in this project. I had a neighbor recently that had to move his mother in due to health reasons, but grew tired of lifting his mom and her shower chair into position every single day.

The solution was a shower remodel complete with grippy-material entry ramp and heated floors. Yes, there are such things as heated shower floors. Basically, these are heated mats that heat the ceramic tiles up on the floor of your shower (if it's tile and not polycarbonate or something). Prefab units are easy to find at specialty plumbing stores or contractor supply locations. Want to heat other ceramic tile areas? Go for it.

If you're about to remodel your guest or master bathroom, installing heated floors may be an investment you'd like to make -- I know I would. According to instructables.com, heating kits can be had for $600 or so, although I'm not sure eBay would be a preferred transaction venue for this type of material -- your mileage may vary.