Every time someone gets ready to take a shower, they wastes an average of a gallon and a half of water. This water is used for nothing other than filling the septic tank. This was precisely the problem that gave birth to the Ecoshower. The idea for the project was a result of overhearing someone talking to a friend about how the Wayland town water reserves were drying up. It wasn’t until I turned the shower on and watched it meaninglessly flow down the drain that I came up with the idea of saving the cold water that is wasted in the first 45 seconds of every shower.
The original “post-it note” idea for the Ecoshower looked something along the lines of strapping a bag to the end of the shower head and then taking the bag off and pouring the water somewhere useful when the water was finally warm enough to enter the shower. This solution didn’t last very long as it would create an enormous effort for the user and take about five minutes to build. But very rapidly the idea evolved and evolved again. Some of the notable prototypical ideas were “a funnel to catch the water from the shower head and reintroduce it back into the pipes via a long tube” and “heated shower heads so the water would be warm as soon as you turn the shower on”. Many of these ideas didn’t make it past the drawing stage as they would either be too inconvenient, not 100% reliable, or there was a product similar already out there. Finally we came up with the idea of redirecting the cold water to a different place where it could be used (the toilet), and then either manually or automatically switching the water back to the shower head when the warm water starts to come out. When we came up with this idea, we decided that we should go for it and build a small scale prototype.
This prototype consisted of a manually controlled diverter valve (splits one stream of water one of two directions), two clear pipes that represented the pipe to the shower and the pipe to the toilet, a small plastic container representing a holding tank above the toilet where excess shower water could be stored, a tube connecting the holding tank and “shower stall” where water could drain if the tank overfilled, two small buckets representing the shower stall and the toilet tank, and a whole lot of duct tape (see “Ecoshower Model” picture). It worked by pouring a little water into the valve at the top of the model, having it flow towards the “toilet”, then switching the valve so the water flowed to the shower. We soon realized that we needed 1. An easier way to divert the water, 2. A signal to know when the water was at a desirable temperature and 3. A pump to create more water pressure.
Soon after experimenting with the model, we got our hands on a working shower head, a pump, an automatic valve and a toilet (which was only used for dramatic effect). We realized we needed to use an Arduino to identify when the water was warm and signal the valve to turn. We went through multiple variations of Arduino configurations that would fit as many as our needs possible. Finally we settled on one that gave us the potential to turn the valve when the shower turned warm, and manually be able to switch the direction of the water flow. During the whole process with the Arduino, we laser cut a board in which our shower head and valve could be fastened, we gathered pipes and connectors, filled bins with water, and slowly but surely began to put the pieces together. After about a week of construction, we finally pieced together our finished, prototype Ecoshower.
The next step in this project would be to insert a two way valve into the area right before the shower head that would stop the water when it’s finally warm so that if when you’re waiting to take a shower and are doing something else such as checking emails, you don’t feel rushed to get in as soon as the water comes to temperature. Another thing another improvement to this project would be to build a motion sensor that, when the water gets warm enough, would tell the shower to start spraying water so that it is completely determined on when the user wants to enter the shower.
