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section 17 Taking showers is one of the mostwater-intensive actions you do in yourhome. Unlike watering the lawn, waterfor the shower is heated.

 A more efficient showerhead saves wa-ter and fossil fuels needed to heat thewater.

Since the cost of a new showerheadstarts at under $15, the investment re-

turn is generally well over 200% peryear.

You can figure out how much water youcan save with a new shower-

head by using our showerhead

calculator.

How to replace a

showerhead • Energy savings per decade: Up to

$258 and 2.060 lbs. CO2 as-suming a 2.2 GPM shower-head traded out for a 1.5 GPMone where 3 people take 8-minute daily showers

• Water savings per decade:Up to

$984 and 61,320 gallons

• Level of difficulty: Easy 

• Cost: Under $15

• How long it takes: 5 minutes toorder the showerhead and 5minutes to install it

• Tools & materials: 1.5 GPM fixed

showerhead or handheld show-

erhead, plumbers or Teflon

tape, locking pliers or visegrip, a rag, an old toothbrush

Note: You can try using a wrench, butif you have a problem loosening theshowerhead, locking pliers or visegrips might make your life a lot easier.

showerheads

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1. Use your tool to grab the nut wherethe showerhead connects to the arm.

Tip: If you don’t want to scratch the fix-

ture, wrap it with a thin rag first.

1. Adjust the pliers to tightly grasp theshowerhead neck using the bolt on thehandle to tighten the jaws of the pliers.Remove the pliers from the shower-head and tighten the pliers’ bolt sothat it’s just a hair tighter. Lock it backonto the showerhead neck. It shouldnow be very tight.

2. You want to loosen the showerheadso go leftie or counter clockwise.

Firmly grasp the showerhead neckwith the pliers, and then turn the plierscounterclockwise. Remember the oldsaying: lefty loosey, righty tighty.

Note: If the showerhead doesn’t turn fairlyeasily, DON’T FORCE IT. You don’t wantto break the pipe that the showerhead con-

nects to. If it looks like the pipe hasrusted, then apply WD-40 to the joint. Ifyou see the white gritty material of lime de-posits, then use Lime-Away. Wait a fewminutes and then try to loosen the shower-head again.

3. Keep turning until the showerheadcomes off.

4. If the threads—where the showerheadwas screwed on—are dirty at all, usean old toothbrush to clean them off.

5. Wrap plumbers' tape around the now-clean threads. Make sure to wrap it onclockwise so that when you put the

new showerhead on it doesn’t unwrapthe plumbers tape. The tape fills upany gaps between the threads of thearm and the showerhead so the con-nection doesn’t leak. Keep the plumb-ers tape flat as you wrap it around thethreads two or three times.

6. Install the new showerhead on the armand hand-tighten it. Don’t use so

much force that you can’t ever get theshowerhead off again.

7. Get out of the shower stall and turn onthe shower. If water spritzes outaround the showerhead/arm connec-tion, tighten the showerhead a bitmore, or take it off and add a bit more plumbers’ tape.

********

Modern low-flow showerheads work 

 beau t i f u l l y . When I sw i tched our 

 s h o w e r h e a d o u t f o r a l o w f l o w 

 showerhead, my husband—who is not a

 sustainability person–- complimented me

on the nice new showerhead. He did not  know, even after showering, that it was low 

flow.

 Audrey 

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