That free shower head City Hall gave me? It’s low flow no mo’ | Opinion
One of the more frustrating things about being an opinion writer is when you throw somebody a bouquet and then wind up having to take it back.
Today, I must.
The free low-flow shower head I got from Wichita City Hall less than a month ago has turned into an epic fail. I hereby withdraw my endorsement of the product.
And I’m bummed.
After trying out the shower head in our seldom-used downstairs bathroom, I liked it so much that I moved it to the main tub and shower upstairs.
And I wrote a glowing column saying everybody should rush down to City Hall, their local library or neighborhood center to pick one up — and hooray for the city of Wichita for helping us to save water in these droughty times.
I should have known it was too good to last.
When I hit the shower Tuesday morning, I got the water up to temperature like every day and pulled the diverter up to switch from bathtub-filling to showering.
There was a loud snap from inside the shower head, and what had been its “gentle rain” mode instantly turned into something more akin to being inside the dishwasher during the pot-scrubber cycle.
The jets in the shower head are so small that with the increased water flow, it was actually painful to stand under it. In a prison camp, it would probably violate the Geneva Convention.
And I could power-wash my driveway with the shower head’s “nine-jet turbo-spray” mode.
During my college years long ago, I paid for my schooling by working summers, Christmases and spring breaks at a gold mine in central Nevada. For two of those summers, I was the assistant to the mine plumber and we maintained everything from the diesel fuel system for 80-ton haul trucks, to the cyanide sprinklers on the ore pads, to the bathrooms in the trailers at the townsite.
It was there I learned the two rules of plumbing: “Poop (although that’s not the word we used) rolls downhill, and don’t bite your fingernails.” But despite my trade knowledge, there was nothing I could do to fix my broken shower head. It’s glued, not screwed together, so I can’t even take it apart without destroying it.
The problem could be a manufacturer defect, or it could be that the water pressure here is too high for it. It was made in China, so maybe it’s retaliation for the trade war we’ve picked with them. I really can’t tell you what went wrong.
But I do know how to calculate flow rates.
The shower head is rated at 1.25 gallons per minute. Now, it delivers that much water in 27 seconds, for a flow rate of nearly 2.8 gallons per minute.
For reference, the average American shower head delivers about two gallons a minute and since 1992, the federal government has limited new shower heads to a maximum flow of 2.5 gallons.
So for the sake of our perennially troubled watershed, I’m hoping my experience is unique. But the city gave away 2,400 of these and I’m doubtful that I got the only defective one.
Don’t worry, City Hall, I’m not using it anymore and I won’t give it away to someone who prefers a more vigorous shower experience than the law allows.
Hey, it was a good try. The struggle continues.
This story was originally published May 8, 2025 at 5:08 AM with the headline "That free shower head City Hall gave me? It’s low flow no mo’ | Opinion."
