Your showerhead is lying to you

Higher pressure is a blessing in more ways than one

By Mark Lasswell of The Wahsington Post. Excerpts:

"Intrepid researchers at the University of Surrey had placed sensors in 290 showers around campus, recording data for 39 weeks from 86,421 individual shower sessions. “Water consumption,” the study found, sensationally, “was reduced by up to 56% with high water pressure.”

The researchers, seeming puzzled by the results, recommended more study. But they also offered a theory along these lines: When a showerhead delivers a good, fizzing spray, people pop in and briskly get their business done, unlike when faced with a drizzle that prompts them to wonder if the Head & Shoulders will ever be adequately washed off their head and shoulders.

One researcher, perhaps trying to reassure eco-warriors distressed by the news, noted: “The best of all worlds is high pressure, low flow.” This is true, just as in the cake realm the best of all worlds is having it and eating it too. The showering ideal might be achievable in controlled laboratory conditions, but we all know what happens in the tiled wild."