City officials unwilling to go with huge flow of showers

The makers of the three-headed Nautilus II Showerbuddy showerhead promise, "You've never had a shower like this before!"

And a showerhead from Watermark Designs will blast bathers with 8 gallons of water per minute through 55 jets. Nowadays, spa-style showers are the rage in upscale bathrooms.

"One big, huge rain showerhead, hand showers, body showers," says Mike Woolson of Best Plumbing in Seattle. "They're asking for a lot of water."

And that's the problem. Some of those luxuriously powerful showerheads are illegal, warns Seattle Public Utilities (SPU). And people may not realize they are being water hogs by using them.

"It's not just a technicality," said Al Dietemann, who leads the water conservation program for SPU. "It really does have kind of an environmental consequence to this waste."

The utility and the California Urban Water Conservation Council recently teamed up to test five showerheads, and found that they used as much as five times more water as state and federal regulations allow, which is 2.5 gallons a minute.

Now they're asking the federal Department of Energy to impose sanctions on the manufacturers, Watermark and Zoe Industries, which makes the Showerbuddy.

Every time a Seattle water customer installs one of the five offending showerheads, it negates the water saved by 29 households that use honest, water-saving heads, Dietemann said. And that could make a 1992 program that sent efficient showerheads to every Seattle home a waste of time and money.

Watermark Designs couldn't be reached for comment yesterday.

An employee at Zoe Industries, Paul Coombs, said the company tested the three-headed Showerbuddy at 2.5-gallons a minute — per head.

It's not clear whether that is against the law, because the term "showerhead" is not clearly defined, Dietemann grants.

But the city contends its tests showed the Showerbuddy used as much as 12 gallons a minute, which is about 4 gallons per head.

A Department of Energy spokeswoman said the department will investigate the city's complaints. But she said the agency doesn't often sanction showerhead manufacturers.

Meanwhile, Seattle has no shower police to hunt down people who use the water-wasting heads.

Woolson, of Best Plumbing, said he has seen people with six or seven showerheads — enough to crank out 20 gallons a minute and quickly drain the average home water heater.

"It's going to be short, but it's going to be intense," he said.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com