release

Plumbers and homeowners alike know the joys of modern low-flow toilets - the ones that require a plumber’s helper at the ready in every water closet. Many even know that the current double-flush regime is the result of careful Congressional deliberation about how best to rid your toilet bowl of its contents.

But I didn’t know they did the same thing with your five-setting super-deluxe shower nozzle. Did you? Hit and Run directs us to Jeffrey Tucker’s essay on federal regulation of your shower head.

[A]s the Department of Energy itself declares to all consumers and manufacturers: “Federal regulations mandate that new showerhead flow rates can’t exceed more than 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm) at a water pressure of 80 pounds per square inch (psi).”

As with all regulations, the restriction on how much water can pour over at once while standing in a shower is ultimately enforced at the point of a gun.

Fortunately, the writer found one company clever enough to find a loophole.