Going With The Flow

The old house (b. 1906) I call my home has, as is invariably the case, seen a progression of "improvements" across its eleven-plus decades of existence. Some have been cosmetic. Others, as they say in the trades, "mechanical." That includes plumbing updates from time to time. And, as is invariably the case, such "improvements" continue.

Regular readers might notice I tend to be generous in my use of scare quotes, and my singling out of "improvements" is no accident. Newer is not always better.

I don't write this as a curmudgeon or Luddite, but rather as a libertarian who's reflexively suspicious of the government's endless efforts to improve our lives on our behalf. As one example, ponder the modern dishwasher. A high-tech appliance, a marvel of energy efficiency compared to its decades-old predecessor, it takes hours to wash our dishes, glassware, and flatware. It also, on occasion, fails to clean things as thoroughly as we'd expect, given that it's an "improvement" over the old one. It requires we use a rinse agent to get acceptable results, and also demands some maintenance tasks (e.g. filter cleaning) that the old one never seemed to need. Absent such, our dishes and glasses sometimes come out stinky even when they're "clean."

Guess what? I'm not the only one with this complaint. The Wall Street Journal reports widespread dissatisfaction and points a finger of blame.

At, shocker, the government. Energy efficiency standards coerced manufacturers into creating these steel-and-plastic cubes of disappointment.

I was grumbling in my head about that, literally the day before I set to typing this piece, while enjoying a robust, high-pressure shower. That shower experience represents a bit of rebellion on my part. As I mentioned, the house warrants improvements from time to time, and the shower head we purchased along with the rest of the house "gave up the ghost" after some time, as in it had built up enough scale to warrant either a repair or a swap. Bernie Sanders-esque grousing about the excesses of capitalism aside, consumers have an almost-overwhelming variety of shower head options available to them.

They range from five-dollar hunks of plastic to multi-thousand-dollar magnificences.

You can buy phenomenally luxurious-looking and exquisitely crafted shower heads that offer the sensation of a rain shower, or a variety of massage options, or a selection of thick or thin, wide or narrow sprays.

You cannot, however, buy one that delivers more than 2.5 gallons per minute. Not since 1992. If you live in NY or CO, you're limited to 2.0 GPM. CA, WA, HI, 1.8.

Recalling something I read at some earlier date, I opted for Home Depot's five dollar el-cheapo plastic no frills model.

Why?

Because a home improvement magazine that I shan't name noted that it was extremely easy to drill out the flow restrictor in that particular model. Something I promptly did.

While it's verboten to sell a high flow shower head, they haven't banned a consumer's liberty to modify it for personal use.

Trump, he of the orange coif, relaxed the shower flow rule and some other consumer appliance restrictions during his tenure, restrictions that Biden promptly reinstated. Because, as I've noted time and again, the number-one policy guiding principle in the Biden administration is "if Trump did X, we must undo it." And consumer preferences matter not.

The shower head flow restriction, the rules that made dishwashers suck, and many more such "efficiencies" imposed on us by the government (Oh, what have they done to washing machines!?) are intended to coerce change and impose conservation upon our lifestyles. Such actions supplant what market forces would resolve with no need for coercion. I am willing to pay a higher water bill every month in order to enjoy a blasting shower. Someone else might say "no, I'd rather pay less" and choose to buy a lower flow shower head. Ditto for other appliances - and in the case of dishwashers, having to pre-rinse or post-wash or post-rinse kinda sorta defeats the purpose of the restrictive standard.

This is predicated on water pricing also being market-based - something that government has also managed to screw up with often-lousy outcomes. One look at California's water mess (hint, farmers pay FAR BELOW what they should, as a form of subsidy for certain water-intensive crops) shows us how distortions are piled upon distortions and precipitate (pun intended) even more distortions.

Price water correctly and fairly, with no preference granted, and consumers can sort the rest out for themselves. Until, then, engage in your own little rebellions. Drill out that shower head if you want to - the Internet is full of how-tos - and revel just a wee bit in giving the ..!.. to those who do stuff unto us "for our own good."

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Joining in the fun are the local utilities, who through a combination of government incentives and fears of inability to deliver energy in the future encourage and subsidize higher-efficiency consumer items like light bulbs and, you guessed it, shower heads.

My local utility sent me an email titled “Could your showerhead be more efficient?” along with this offering:

Take note of the “WaterSense” badge, which is just one of many (e.g. EnergyStar) that the government has created to encourage us to conserve. I’m not averse to such labels. More information is better, and while I’d rather such info be provided by private sector entities that rely on reputation for their continued existence, I’ll settle for this. Informing the public isn’t coercive. Mandating the badge, and therefore mandating the product meet the badge’s standards is where it goes wrong.