At Home with Lisa: Replacing a Showerhead

When I bought my old house, the bathtub included a showerhead of indeterminate age that seemed to use a lot of water.

Curious about how much water these old showerheads use, I looked through Avista Utilities’ website and I learned that a regular showerhead uses about three to five gallons of water a minute. If I installed a low-flow showerhead, I can reduce that usage by half.

The site even includes this DIY video to demonstrate how to install your new showerhead. The video isn’t even two minutes long.

Could it really be that easy?

I am here to tell you: yes, it is. Really.

The showerheads are easy to find. They run in price from $10 and up. I even saw one on a very popular shopping site for a little more than $6. The one I chose uses 1.35 to 1.8 gallons of water per minute.

I first used an adjustable wrench to loosen my old showerhead. Once I got it started, I could unscrew it by hand.

After wiping off the threads with a wet towel and drying the pipe off, I wrapped the threads with plumbers’ tape. Not a lot, just about two times around the pipe.

Then, I screwed on the new showerhead. I was done in just about the time it took the guy in the video to do it. It was so quick and easy.

Now that my project for the week is done, I’m off to enjoy it!