What is Better For Conserving Water, Showers or Baths

What is Better For Conserving Water, Showers or Baths


When it comes to showers vs. baths, there is strong opposition on each side as well as valid arguments for both. It’s not an easy decision to make, but at least there are some things that can help both causes to conserve a bit of water.

In order to conserve water in a shower, you can use a shower head that doesn’t allow quite as much water to pass through, this is generally regarded as a low-flow shower head. You can buy these at just about any home improvement warehouse, and they’re usually not too expensive. For those who are concerned about the environment this is definitely a good investment.

If you are using a bathtub then you can conserve water by not filling the tub all the way up. Generally a tub will require thirty gallons to fill, and that’s quite a bit of water wasted. It’s true that you won’t be able to completely immerse yourself in water during your bath, but you will be able to get yourself clean which is the aim of bathing anyway.

So now on to the big question, which is better: bathing or showering. Statistically a shower requires 13-14 gallons of water while a bath requires about thirty. This means that a bath requires twice as much water as a shower. But like we said, you can drastically reduce the amount of water in a bath by only filling it halfway. Take note that a gallon in the UK is two pounds heavier than a gallon in the US, and therefore is something to consider when you think about water conservation.

These figures are based on the assumption that you take short showers lasting about ten minutes in length. If you decide to take a shower that lasts for thirty minutes up to an hour then you will obviously be using much more water and might even surpass the water capacity of a full bathtub. Of course this is not an open and closed case because every individual is completely different. If you’re really interested in saving water though, there are some things that you can do.

The first thing that you can do obviously is take shorter showers, but as you know there is a time before the shower when we waste more water than we know. This is what we call the warm-up time. You know exactly what I’m talking about, it’s the time where you wait for the water to warm up in your bath. With showers this isn’t quite extreme because most people turn the shower off and jump back three feet as to not be hit by the cold water. Those who are smart will stand outside of the shower and turn the knob, but as you know not everyone has learned this.

If you are doing this during a bath then you can place a bucket under the faucet to collect the cold water. After you do this there are all kinds of things that you can do with it. One thing is watering the plants around the house, or even doing dishes later. The possibilities are endless!

So what we’ve learned here today is that whether you use a bath or a shower you are going to waste water. In spite of this the best option is a shower if you truly wish to conserve water. Taking short showers really is the answer, so if you think it’s for you then look into a low-flow shower head and start saving!