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Navy Shower Analysis

December 5th, 2008 at 06:47 pm

Curious to know what effect my navy showers would have on our water bill, I went into heavy-duty analysis mode.

* Got a five gallon bucket and measured the amount of water that runs from our shower head in one minute.
* Timed an average navy shower. Used the measurement to calculate the gallons of water used in an average navy shower.
* Guessed at the amount of time showering with a non-navy shower. Calculated the number of gallons used for that.
* Calculated the number of gallons used for a month of navy showers and a month of non-navy showers. Subtracted the navy shower gallons from the non-navy shower gallons to get the number of gallons saved per month of navy showers.
* Used the 7.481 gallons per cubic feet figure found in the Tightwad Gazette book to convert the gallons into cubic feet.

At this point I got out the most recent water bill, which covers two months, and made this startling discovery:
* Of the $87.51 bill, $57.20 are flat charges. No amount of decreased water usage will change them.
* In 56 days (per the bill), the amount charged for consumption was $30.31. That's 54 cents per day.

Further calculations revealed that taking navy showers, at least in my part of the world, will decrease my water bill by about 0.83 per month, or about $1.66 per bill.

I guess this experiment was not a stunning success. Nevertheless, I'm going to continue with navy showers. They help keep me in the frugal mindset.

I also plan to estimate the dollar savings of turning the heat down during the day while I'm home.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

5 Responses to “Navy Shower Analysis”

  1. Koppur Says:
    December 5th, 2008 at 07:18 pm 1228504705
    1228504705

    You're right Petunia; that was a thrill! Smile

  2. monkeymama Says:
    December 5th, 2008 at 07:43 pm 1228506205
    1228506205

    Bummer.

    I don't mind Navy showers in spring or summer. I will do it to conserve water, regardless of cost. (Not that I did it every day; experimented).

    But in winter, I am out. Hehe! Luckily here it is only 3 months out of the year it will be too cold (for me), probably.

  3. lizajane Says:
    December 5th, 2008 at 09:45 pm 1228513532
    1228513532

    It sounds like my "turn the hot water heater off at night" experiment. I checked kilowatts before and then checked them the next morning before turning it back on. I did the same the next night but this time left the h/w/h on. I repeated the experiment twice and the results were totally inconsistent with anything. Once it used MORE when I turned it off overnight. I then decided I was not scientific enough, because I hadn't paid attention to how many computers and/or tvs had been left on in each case, so I abandoned the whole experiment! I leave it on now, but I turn off the computers more. LOL

  4. Petunia Says:
    December 6th, 2008 at 05:44 am 1228542283
    1228542283

    Monkeymama - Yes, I'm shivering as I'm waiting to jump in the shower. . . but if I time getting out with the heat coming on in the morning. . . or if I take my shower after DH takes his. . . or if I have a cup of coffee first, I do better. LOL.
    Lizajane - LOL about your water heater experiment leading to turning off the computers more.

  5. scfr Says:
    December 8th, 2008 at 06:30 pm 1228761007
    1228761007

    If you take a Navy shower, you do not have to run the fan as long to clear out the steam from the bathroom. Probably hard to impossible to figure out how much that saves you in electricity use, but no doubt it does add to your savings. Also, perhaps you end up having to use less cleanser when you clean the shower, because less steam = cleaner shower environment?

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