The water and energy use of the mist shower is so low that the bathroom could be taken off-grid and off-pipe even in an urban context.
If you gave me an option to have to take shitty low flow showers for 4 years or Donald trump for 4 more years I’d pick Trump. Just saying. Water usage from households isn’t a real problem anyway, most water use is for farms industrial facilities. Urban is like 8%. For energy use yeah heating water uses energy not that much dollar wise and doesn’t contribute to peak demand because most water shower use doesn’t coincide with peak energy demand. If you want a super efficient shower for off grid living in the desert maybe this is a good idea but otherwise too much effort.
For me a good shower is one of life’s cheap simple luxuries that I value a lot. I’m not gonna give up 1 minute of showers so Coca-Cola can bottle another can of their shitty drink or somebody can grown more corn to burn. If we were using water efficiently in other areas ok maybe it would be a fair ask but in the current state it’s not.
From the article, there are other costs apart from the amount of water used:This practice requires two scarce resources: water and energy. More attention is given to the showers’ high water consumption, but energy use is just as problematic. Hot water production accounts for the second most significant use of energy in many homes (after heating), and much of it is used for showering. Water treatment and distribution also use lots of energy.
The finest shower I ever took was at my wife’s uncle’s house. It was a giant monstrosity if a house, built in the early nineties by them - a couple with more money than taste. Lots of weird bougie stuff - just fancy everywhere. The second master (where we were staying) had a shower with two opposing heads. But instead of the gold plated shower heads that would have matched the rest of the fixtures, there were green, plastic, farm grade nozzles. There were no flow restrictors in there. Just all of the water pressure I could handle. It was the most decadent, lovely shower I’ve ever had.
Russian spas are quite the trip. Never had a thermonuclear death shower, but I did receive first degree burns over the entire top half of my body trying to out tough locals in a dry sauna in Bishkek.
LOL if it makes you feel any better I have a scar under my right shoulder blade from the sauna at Mieko's, which had a nailhead that wasn't properly sunk. I leaned against that damn thing for 20 minutes expecting it to cool down and it just never did... The "thermonuclear death shower" is always cold. Which makes it always awesome.
Ha that place is a bit weird but it’s authentic, it was dirty and sometimes people were super inconsiderate but the actual steam room was legit. Personally I preferred Q spa in lynwood. It’s closer and good enough, no awesome shower though. Idk how any of this stuff survives unless it was funded by hot money. Maybe it will just change owners when covid dies down
I find "authentic" is hipster for "skunjey like I anticipate the original is based on my orientalist appreciation of foreigners." It's a way to say "if you don't like it it's because you don't revel in play-acting." Voda is authentic AF down to the fact that 80% of the people there are Mafiya. It's also clean and frickin' sybaritic. Like $50 to get in, tho and built in an old crematorium. The tracks leading into the furnace in the hot banya take some getting used to. I got an extraordinarily bad massage as part of a package deal at Q on New Years in 2017. I still have trigger finger from it.
I’m skeptical, this might work for your average Dutch white guy, but throw thick hair into the mix and it falls apart. They mention this working for long hair with an adjustment and I still think they’re out of touch. This wouldn’t work around the world, and would primarily only work in areas that aren’t experiencing major water scarcity.
I did Navy showers for most of junior and high school, primarily because The Hunt For Red October is a dope-ass book and because I was into self-deprivation. Also my sister tended to use all the hot water so it was about my only option. The opposite of a Navy shower, for those that are curious, is a "Hollywood" shower. Or it least that's what Tom Clancy thought in 1981. I've never taken a steam shower. I will say that steam rooms are absolutely my 100% favorite thing about russian spas. I could certainly be talked into this but there's a hint here: ...yeah but it's a lot easier to inhale legionella when it's a fine mist. There are more pragmatic solutions that the big boys like Kohler use when they do their ridonkulous waterfall showers. Okay, you made me buy the damn Kira book.Please note that all showers carry a legionella risk.
Just because it doesn’t affect you in Portland doesn’t mean water scarcity isn’t a real thing.
That bit is important. A quick glance at Wikipedia: Persuading people to make small sacrifices for the greater good is a crucial challenge of our times, both with pandemics and with environmental problems. Meanwhile, good old Donald continues his streak of coming up with the most damaging policy possible in every department of life: US calls for shower rules to be eased after Trump hair complaintsbuy yea it's not evenly divided.
A mere 0.014% of all water on Earth is both fresh and easily accessible. Of the remaining water, 97% is saline and a little less than 3% is difficult to access. Technically, there is a sufficient amount of freshwater on a global scale. However, due to unequal distribution (exacerbated by climate change) resulting in some very wet and some very dry geographic locations, plus a sharp rise in global freshwater demand in recent decades driven by industry, humanity is facing a water crisis. Demand is expected to outstrip supply by 40% in 2030, if current trends continue.
Oh I got one! The passive aggressiveness energy of people in the PNW!
What a shitty attitude to have, but you do you.
What's passive here and really what's aggressive? Water is one of the most plentiful resources on the planet and calling scarce is nothing but suspect when you are pushing a mist shower. You do have the PNW sensitivity, forgive me if I don't stay so you can work it out.
1) your edit is a lot more of a “trying to have a conversation” as opposed to your initial comment which was entirely dismissive (for those of you reading from home, subtract the second paragraph from cgods comment) 2) did you even bother to give a skim of the link I provided? 3) you’re forgiven and I’m not complaining. Sorry I’m a bit of a snowflake!
Didn't see your comment until after I added my edit. I am aware that water is a troubled resource in many parts of the world and that it's imperiled for many different reasons. I think uhsguy makes the beginning of many good points that could be made about why showers pale in comparison to many other things that threaten our water supply. I'd like to try a mist shower and I bet there are many different situations where a super low flow shower could be a great thing. I should give them credit, they waited for the second paragraph to call water and power scarce. Neither is scarce and yet still man kinds desire to consume both in an almost limitless quantities compared to supply. I admit that I get irked when the opening of a long essay drops some silliness along these lines. I don't really have a problem with his solution or the goal of conservation of resources, I just find Malthusian bullshit irksome and he got my goat.