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My father said to me: "I like a shower better than a bath, but ugh, that first blast of cold water when you turn it on is always a bit shocking." Me: "Why don'
by mabbo 4y ago
My father said to me: "I like a shower better than a bath, but ugh, that first blast of cold water when you turn it on is always a bit shocking."
Me: "Why don't you turn on the shower, wait for it to get warm, then get in?"
Him, realizing he'd been using a shower wrong for over 6 decades: "... huh."
- number6 4y agoI like your dad's way better; also don't turn on the warm water
- yamtaddle 4y agoBut that would ruin the best waking part of 95% of my days.
- Radim 4y agoReminds me of an old joke: > The best part of having cold showers every day? You'll never get arthritis! > The worst part? You'll have cold showers every day.
- badpun 4y ago> The best part of having cold showers every day? You'll never get arthritis! Is that so? My joints in fingers and toes can hurt quite badly after being to too much cold water. Doesn't feel like it's helping them in any way - quite the opposite.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoRelated: you can buy "hot water recirculation systems" to keep the water hot in your shower. When the water in your hot water pipes gets cold, it dumps it into your cold water pipes. Therefore the water isn't wasted. This can save a lot of water if you're the type to let your shower run until it is warm. So some jurisdictions encourage their installation.
- ericpauley 4y agoSounds like false economy to me. You’re saving a minute amount of water but using far more energy to keep less-insulated water warm.
- pc86 4y ago"Far more" is relative, to say the least. We're talking about the amount of water that fills a shower pipe - very little - and unless you're only showering once a week it's not that big of a change.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoIn my house it's a lot. Due to the shower being in a different spot than when the house was originally built so the routing is about as inefficient as possible, there's well over 100 feet of pipe between our hot water tank and our shower.
- graton 4y agoHow much time does it take? In the US almost all shower-heads and faucets will only use a maximum of 2.5 gallons per minute. For me the water will get hot in about 30 seconds. So I am using approximately 1.25 gallons of water. For me that is acceptable.
- pavon 4y agoIn our house, the master bath is on the complete opposite side of the house from the water heater, and we have to run about two gallons of water before it gets hot, and if we wait more than 10 or 15 minutes between showers, the water in the pipes gets cold again, and we have to run another two gallons. In other words it isn't just the water in the shower pipe, it is the water in the full pipe between the heater and the shower. I've just started looking into either getting a tank-less water heater in the master bathroom or a recirculating system to save water. I like that the recirculating system would help with the entire house, not just that one bathroom, but it is looking to be quite expensive and wasteful of energy, unless we can do something like have switches in the bathrooms and kitchen to manually turn on the recirculator for a few minutes before use instead of running the water for a few minutes.
- hprotagonist 4y agoRight; the cold blast comes at the end!
- anthonypasq 4y agomy shower at my current apartment actually have the temp and volume nozzles separate so that i can taper the water pressure and it stays hot. Its delightful, i dont know why this isnt standard.
- hprotagonist 4y agoi meant that i intentionally run it on cold for the last 30 seconds or so of a shower.
- coreyhn 4y agoHaha, gotta love the simple solutions
- punkbit 4y agoHaha! Thanks for sharing! I had a good laugh :D
- godshatter 4y agoHuh. I just block the stream with my hand until it warms up.
- p1mrx 4y agoIf you have a sink near the shower, run it full blast on hot to flush the cold water from the pipe. This mainly saves time, but it also saves water if your shower mixer valve doesn't go to 100% hot. (It's generally good to keep the hot limiter below 100%, to avoid full-body scalding.)
- sockaddr 4y agoI think that blast of cold water might have done good things for his endorphin levels. Just curious about this anecdote, was he generally a happy person?
- beznet 4y agofor me, I take showers at night close to bed time. The last thing I want to experience is a cold shock to my system at that time of day. I can see it being useful in the morning though
- raldi 4y agoThere's a clever product that you can screw inline with the showerhead that lets cold water through at full blast but when the water gets hot, something pops (presumably using metal-expansion properties the way old thermostats did) and the flow is reduced to a trickle, so you only use just enough water to keep it hot. Then when you get in, you pull a cord and it releases the full pressure of nice hot water.
- jedberg 4y agoWe just keep a 5 gallon bucket next to the shower and fill it up with the pre-warm water. Then we use it to water the garden (and sometimes to power flush a stuck toilet).
- SilasX 4y agoThat ... still seems like the wrong way. Every shower I've known has let you angle the head down. So start it that way, feel for the water to get warm, then turn it towards you. With the method you described, it takes longer, with more water usage, to get into position, plus you let some water spray out into the rest of the bathroom as you transition inside it.
- pards 4y agoWim Hof would disagree. I always start and end my showers with 1 minute of full cold (in Canada, so cold = 8°C)
- tasuki 4y agoWhy start the shower full cold? (I end showers cold, not sure if 1 minute, sometimes less sometimes more depending on mood)
- pards 4y agoI start with full cold because it's more of a shock to the system. I find the cold water improves my mood and provides a daily dose of "suck it up, buttercup". I've __almost__ started crave that cold shock in the mornings now, and the cold water at the end of the hot shower feels like .. relief.
- OJFord 4y agoI'm sure we can find a bizarre cult/motivational speaker/pyramid scheme to disagree with anything though.
- saulpw 4y agoThe army method: stand there and take it like a man. The Superman method: put your hand up to block the blast. The Spiderman method: jump to the opposite side of the shower to avoid the blast. The clever method: turn on the shower and wait outside.
- nashashmi 4y agoThe Pakistani method: shower with fully cold water in the summer. And mock anyone (mostly spoiled people from the Middle East) who turns the water heater on during summer months.
- deckardt 4y agoI literally started doing this like five days ago. I'm 43...