This is a man getting submerged in cold water. People can survive up to 3 hours in 5ºC water if they have a life jacket. Right now, in Indiana, it's snowing outside. I only have to survive in the 5ºC shower long enough to shampoo, soap, and rinse. No problem. Everyday. No problem.
The average flow rate of a shower head can be estimated as 100mL per second. I am not pulling numbers out of my butt. You can scientifically determine this by turning on the shower, starting a stop watch and letting the shower water fill a bucket. Then divide volume by time to get a flow rate.
Each mL of water takes 4.186 joules to heat 1 degree Celcius. That's just the specific heat of water, go wikipedia it.
But for a hot shower, water must be heated about 20ºC above it's current temp. (If you are an engineer, this shortcut is crucial. Alt+167. That's the degree symbol "º". Cute girls also have applications when making designs in their Instant Message profiles.)
So every second of hot shower usage equates to 8372 Joules being used to heat up the water. (4.186*100*20)
A 20 minute hot shower uses 10046400 Joules = 10046.4 kJ !!!!!!!!!!!! Does anyone realize how significant this is? Let me put it into numbers that non engineers can understand.
The average light bulb is 60 Watts. A watt is a joule/second.
Above is a picture of about 45 light bulbs. Imagine this many times 3 all turned on!
So when you are taking your nice comfortable hot shower, it is like turning on 139.5 light bulbs!! That's how much energy you need to heat up the water. (8327/60=139.5)
So a 20 minute shower is like leaving 2 light bulbs on all day!! What a waste. (10046400joules/24hr/60min/60sec/60watt = 1.94 bulbs/day)
So it is easy to see why I have quit hot showers. I have also quit hot water laundry washing. The goal is to turn off the water heater. This is because it also costs a lot of energy to maintain the heat in the water tank.
*************Update
It's been a little over a year and a half since I made that goal. This was only supposed to be a year long goal. Try to save a little electricity, help the world out. But mid way through that year, I cheated once.
February 2007:
I was kind of seeing this girl, and we were taking a shower together. It was snowing outside, and she had her hot water heater turned on like most people. I suggested the idea of trying a cold shower, but she refused. I'm usually a stubborn guy, but it doesn't take an idiot to figure out that asking again would kill the mood.
This is a girl that is taking a cold shower. I didn't want to see that face on the girl I was seeing because I'm a nice guy. (By the way, I don't look at these kind of websites. I was just doing a google image search for cold showers, and this came up)
I happily accepted the warm shower. I told myself that I was not taking a warm shower. I am just sharing her's. You know? She would have been using that hot water with or without me, so might as well with me!!
But after about 20 minutes. I turned the shower off and got out. I couldn't take it anymore. I wasted such a nice memory because I was so caught up in not wasting electricity.
So after that, I decided that instead of 1 year without hot water. I would change my goal to "I will not use hot water until I get a girlfriend."
August 3rd, 2008
I am still not taking showers because I am still single. It will probably remain like this for awhile. I need to be single until I save up enough cash in my Ferrari Fund. Girls spend your money!
Also, there is instant saving from energy costs from not using hot water. Every dollar helps. That seems to be the most important rule. Every dollar helps.
It's easy to think you're only spending a few dollars here on coffee or a few dollars here on a shirt that's on sale. And maybe you only do these things a few times every month. But you add it all up for the year and you begin to realize that even little things that happen a lot of times becomes a lot of money.
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