Rainstick Showers - Higher Water Pressure, Using 80% Less Water?

Posted by: Rate It Green Team

The Rainstick shower seems to offer the impossible, delivering high water pressure, while using a lot less water.  If you’re concerned about lower water pressure, this product can deliver a better experience for you while still saving water.  And if you take a longer shower, you no longer have to feel quite as guilty about wasting as much water and energy.  In all seriousness, the Rainstick shower uses .5 gallons per minute or 80% less water than an average code complaint shower, saving energy, water, and money. The comparisons are really impressive:
 

• 2.5 gallons per minute - the average code-complaint shower head
• Water Sense - 2 gallons per minute, or 1.8 gallons for low flow (the requirement in some areas and states, including CA, CO, OR, and WA).
• Rain Stick - Delivers 3 gallons per minute using .5 gallons of water

How does Rainstick consume only .5 gallons per minute of water coming into the whole shower system, but deliver 3 gallons per minute coming out of the shower head? As Rain Stick’s Priya Prasad explains to Green Builder Matt Hoots of Sawhorse, Inc., the key is that the system reuses water instead of sending it down the drain. The Rainstick shower fills its reserve to half a gallon, and then the pump takes the water up and through a 3 stage cleaning process, which includes UV sanitation. This process can repeat six times before water is sent down the drain. The three cleaning steps and process include:

• Micron filtration - This physical barrier filters out substances such as dust, sand, dirt, and hair
• UV Sanitization - The UV process filters out 99.9% of bacteria 
• Additionally, the system also cleans internally between showers for soap scum, hard water, and keeps the system hygienic for the next shower. 

Water that has been through the Rainstick system can still also drain into a gray water system for flushing or irrigation. in fact, one Rainstick can save as much water as a whole grey water system. Rainstick showera can also reduce the impact on drains for septic systems, possibly lowering the size of the leach field. Well water consumption is also reduced.  The Rainstick shower can lower water expenses by $1000 per year, and also saves energy as the system reuses a percentage of the heat in the hot water as well. 

For retrofit applications, Rainstick is much like a regular shower install, except there does need to be GFCI connected electrical circuit behind the wall.  The drain needs to be located in the subfloor, similar to a linear drain.  

As far as design, the company has introduced a new design called Rainstick Light, for those who might not prefer the original tower design. For the Rainstick light. all of the technology can be located in a remote box. Additional colors are also available for the Rainstick Light.

It kind of seems hard to believe, but this system saves water, energy, money (and guilt?) while delivering a better experience.  This is a super win-win example.