The Evolve Roadrunner Showerhead - 1.5 gpm, ShowerStart Technology

Like other low-flow showerheads, the Roadrunner has a flowrate of 1.5 gallons per minute (gpm). In addition to this water-saving feature, it has something that no other showerhead has: ShowerStart technology. What it does is that the showerhead automatically reduces the flowrate to a mere trickle once the water reaches “bathing” temperature. The range of that bathing temperature is unclear. The flowrate of the “trickle” is also unclear as well but I’m going to estimate it to be 0.25 gpm.

In order to return to the normal flowrate, you pull a string attached to a lever that releases the water. The purpose of this technology, of course, is to save hot water while one is preparing to get into the shower. It is definitely useful for people who tend to leave the showerhead turned on for a long period of time while doing other things and thereby wasting a lot of water. If you have a non-eco friendly showerhead that has a flowrate of 2.5 gpm and you mill around for 10 minutes waiting for the shower to get hot, you just wasted 25 gallons of water, and much of that was hot water. With the ShowerStart technology of this Evolve Roadrunner showerhead, you could still me milling around for those 10 minutes, but if the water gets hot after 2 minutes and the flow reduces to .25 gpm, instead of wasting 25 gallons, you only wasted 7 gallons, a reduction of 18 gallons per shower.

(2.5 gpm x 2 min) + (0.25 gpm x 8 min) = 7 gal

Over a week of maybe 6 showers, you saved 108 gallons of water. This is a significant savings in water and money. Of course, it’s not likely that you waste 25 gallons of water per shower currently anyway, so the savings you’ll realize may not be as drastic as the example. But the savings that this showerhead offers is not just in water, but also in energy. By using less hot water, your energy bill should also decrease.

Photo of candles lit on my desk during Earth Hour 2009

After Earth Hour was over, however, my parsimony of electricity use didn’t stop. I always shut my computer off at night, I never turn the bathroom light on during the day because thankfully we have frosted glass windows, and all kitchen appliances remain unplugged until use. Our house also does not have central air-conditioning so we never expend energy heating or cooling the house by any other method than passive heating/cooling. Of course this house is 50 years old and was not built with “green” intentions. We don’t have a wind chimney, our eaves aren’t long enough to block summer’s high sun and the insulation is old and poor. The only new, energy-saving changes we have made in the past half a decade are the double-paned windows. Unfortunately, on a hot, hot summer day in so. cal. they actually don’t help.

Being a silent, individual participant of Earth Hour didn’t make the event less significant to me. After the fact, I read and saw many pictures online of cities across the globe, darkened and un-polluting of the night sky.

A friend sent me a link to this site, which shows urban cities before and having turning off their excess lights: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/earth_hour_2009.html

I was surprised to learn that even Las Vegas participated in Earth Hour. I’m sure all the partying in the City that Never Sleeps wasn’t interrupted. Otherwise, I would have heard about it from my parents who were actually vacationing there that weekend.

All in all, I believe we should have more Earth Hours. I believe there should be more propaganda surrounding important conscience-raising events such as these. Maybe it will one day turn into something bigger, something longer-lasting. Maybe it will change the modern human habit of excess to parsimony.