Thursday 11th February 2010

Showerdrop Universal Shower Meter

Many of us up and down the country got to know the realities of having little or no water supply when the Big Freeze lead to the Big Thaw, and then on to the Big Leak.

Now we're faced with the prospect of paying for our water with the introduction of Water Meters.

What I'm looking at is a little gadget called the Eco Showerdrop Universal Shower Meter.

It would be more popular in the UK where there are water meters in many places.

The idea of water conservation and paying for water has come into our minds since the Big Freeze and the effects on our water supply.

Only last week Clare County Council said their water supplies had been restored to all areas. So did Cavan, and Dublin City Council.

There were still problems in parts of Dun Laoighaire Rathdown until last week.

Budget 2010, which was announced on 9 December 2009, indicated that a system of water metering for homes will be introduced.

Water charges will be based on the amount consumed above a free allocation.

John Gormley has indicated he wants to install water meters in about 1.1 million homes, and begin charging for the resource. Presently it looks like that won't happen until next year.

A water meter would give you an idea of your overall consumption, but there are items out there to help prevent you wasting water in specific places - namely the shower!

So how does this work? Does it need special tools to install it?

The Showerdrop shower meter is a very simple bit of kit, that doesn't need to be installed or attached to the plumbing.

It is about 2 inches long, in the shape of a drop of water, and has a circular LCD display in the middle, which shows the time, the amount used in litres and a figure of person standing under water drops.

All you have to do is callibrate it your own shower so you get an accurate reading.

All this involves is measuring out how long it takes to fill up one litre of water from your shower head - it comes with a plastic measuring bag with a litre mark, you press a button to start a timer, and stop it when it hits the litre mark, and that's it. The Showerdrop now knows how long it takes to pump out a litre of water in your shower.

And this can vary widely depending whether you use a power shower or not.

Power showers can use a litre in 4 or 5 seconds, so that's 12 to 15 litres in one minute. If you spend 5 mins in the power shower, that could be 75 litres, which could be as much as a bath.

An average bath could fill up with around 80 litres of water.

So what does the display show you when you have the shower on?

The display clocks up the litres you are using and the stick figure fills up with water as you head towards 35 litres.

The alarm is pre set to 35 litres or 8 mins, which ever you hit first.

I found myself racing against it to get done before I triggered the alarm.

The clock may have had a bug in it as it seemed to think there were only 41 mins in an hour, and it wasn't a stopwatch either.

If we had meters now, the manufacturers claim it could save you up to €210 a year.

If we had water meters here it could help save you money, but when you think about it, it could help cut down on electricity costs anyway.

And what does it cost?

It costs just €14.99 from Agtec.ie and that includes VAT and delivery.