5 ways to have a 5 litre shower
How can you have a shower with only five litres of water? Easy! Switching over to one of these methods will save you hundreds of litres of water over summer. Invaluable if you are relying on tank water. Luckily it rains in winter in temperate climates, so there’s more rainwater for the cooler season, when you don’t want to be showering outside. Even having a five litre shower every second night, or on weekends, will slash your water use. Have a go!
1. Boil a kettle (1-2 litres) and take it to the bathroom with a jug. Fill the jug about two thirds full of cold water from the tap, and add boiling water until it’s the temperature you want. Stand or squat in the shower or bath. Pour the jug over you to wet. Soap up. Pour the jug over again to rinse off.
2. For small babies and children: run a few litres of water into a baby bath, small tub or clean rubbish bin and sit them in it to wash. Tip the water onto the garden or pot plants afterwards.
3. Fill a solar shower with a few litres of cold water and sit it in the sun to warm up. Hang it from a tree outside, or even take it inside to your shower cubicle to wash your body.
4. Fill a large plastic bottle with warm water from the tap. Stand in the shower or on the grass outside and tip it all over yourself to wash off. Good for sandy post-beach showers. You can refill a 1.5 litre bottle three times and it will still be under 5 litres of water consumption.
5. Classic top and tail: use a wet flannel or splash handfuls of water on yourself to wash your face, armpits and groin.
Which of these have you tried?
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We use all of the above really. Our current method is to heat water in a 20 litre boiler on the stove (wood heater in winter and gas stove in summer) and fill a 20 litre bucket about 3/4 full of cold water. We add hot water to the cold until it is the right temperature then carry the bucket out to our shower area. There is a small jug in the shower area which we use to pour water over ourselves. One bucket of water provides up to four showers (usually three though). I also use the Top and Tail method in the mornings before work. We have cut our total water usage down to 150 litres a day for a family of three (sometimes four) adults. We collect all our own rain water.