To ask son to reduce water consumption

[VestPantsandSocks]

My adult son leaves the water running whilst shampooing his hair and soaping himself during his 20 minute shower.

AIBU to ask him to switch off the water at these times?

Tell him to take much shorter showers!

Look at your water provider's website, they will almost certainly have free kit available to help you reduce your water consumption, such as blocks to put in your wc cistern to reduce its capacity.

Yes this. He's probably beating one out in there 🤣

I take 20 minute showers without anything other than showering happening.
But if it is a cost issue get him to pay more towards it.

Water is a precious resource. Yes it falls free of charge from the sky, but it has to be filtered, treated and checked as suitable for drinking, and then pumped into our homes. So we shouldn't be wasting it. If you were bathing with the water from your water butts, fine.
I always turn off the shower when I'm shampooing and then putting conditioner on. I'm lucky in that my shower doesn't run cold in those couple of minutes. But if I try to have a bath after DH has had a shower there's no hot water left.

20 minutes for a shower - Jesus. Just no.

Short answer is, that's unreasonable.
If you want him to be quicker for whatever reason, tell him. If he doesn't get the message then resort to switching it off at the mains. Easier than finding the stopcock & messing around.
Unless it isn't electric obviously.
But yeah, have a conversation.

I wouldn't turn the water off whilst I was washing my hair, but I can't imagine what anyone can possibly find to do in a shower for 20 minutes, particularly a man who isn't washing very long hair. A thorough shower takes me less than five minutes, maybe eight minutes on days that I wash my hair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_shower

I don't do it myself as only take about 10 mins in shower but it is a recognised system of reducing water consumption. How accurate these figures are, I've got no idea. It was just a suggestion. 🤷‍♀️

@WetBandits

nust because he likes a long shower doesn't mean he's wanking in there

@VestPantsandSocks

i would not be turning the shower on & off while I was washing..

If someone else was paying the bills & asked me to. I'd take shorter showers.

if it's 'environmental I'd talk to him. But, as an adult that's his choice to make.

I've bought a timer for teenage dc.
Like pp, turning my shower off causes it to run cold again.
The bathroom is cold, because we need to ventilate with an open window.
Reckon my longest shower is 15 mins with shaving, shampoo and leaving conditioner in.

I didn’t know people turned off the water for sections of their shower. That sounds miserable. Doesn’t it just take longer to rinse off anyway? I soap and shampoo under the running water, so it rinses off while I’m doing it and I don’t get cold.

Just ask him to have shorter showers.

At the risk of triggering the standard Mumsnet squabble... How often is he showering? Maybe suggest he does it less often if it's bothering you. I'd rather have a decent length shower every 2 days than a turn off the water while you shampoo one every day.

Not unusual to leave shower running while doing that though, would use more electric to turn it off and back on than leave it on.

Unlikely, but in any case we don’t know if the OP’s shower is electric. Ours isn’t.

You want me to stand there in the freezing cold air, soaping and shampooing myself, before turning the warm shower back on, in my own home??

Do people actually do this? Every day this hellsite gives me a new insight into the darkest depths of humanity, I need to log off. Jesus.

Let him have a nice shower FFS

Haha this is the slightly less polite version of what I wanted to say. Life's too short for this kind of bollocks.

Why is there freezing cold air in your own home?

You're naked and wet, it feels pretty chilly even on a decent day.

Radical idea
talk to him

It does explain why so many grumpy people are on this site 🤣

5 minutes is plenty long enough to shower, that includes deep conditioning long hair and shaving (whilst deep conditioner works!) a normal shower is 3 minutes for me. If people want to soak in water for longer than 5 minutes, a bath makes sense

Well you're not unreasonable to request that he limits his showers to 10 mins - but turning off the water for the short amount of time it takes to shampoo is ridiculous . And all the water you are wasting while the shower runs hot again - or do you expect him to stand under a cold shower whilst it's re-warming up ?

20 minutes is unnecessary and expensive in gas or electric never mind the water

By the way navy showers are shorter still here, dd wets her hair in the sink, lathers up, then showers to rinse it and wash body, 90seconds she reckons. 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner of course and dry shampoo fir emergencies eg when the fresh water maker fails

I feel like this really depends on your water pressure. At home mines is a sad trickle, it takes forever to get conditioner out. The work showers are like being power washed in comparison, love them can rinse my hair in 30 seconds.

No, because it doesn’t start running cold after it’s been switched off for all of three minutes while I’m shaving my legs! I switch it back on and it’s as hot as it was when I switched it off.

Even from first switch-on in the morning, it’s hot enough to use within about 10 seconds. No standing about waiting for it to get hot