You could be saving water, and not even know it. It's all about a little piece of plastic inside what's called a low-flow shower head.

With it, you're saving money and water.  Without it, you're letting more than cash go down the drain.
   
Many of us spend as many as 30 minutes in the shower every day. Do the math and an average American shower equals about 50 gallons of water.  That's 1,800 gallons a year, or enough to fill a couple of backyard pools. 

You could save half that water for about ten bucks.  Low flow shower heads are an industry standard.  But many of us don't even know if we have one.

Chances are if you've changed your shower head in the last five years, you're using a low-flow model.  There's an easy way to tell.

"Well there's an adapter in the majority of them that you can tell whether it's low flow or not," says Mike Antey, a bathroom design specialist.  "It's a little insert put in there...and if it's in there it'd obviously be the low flow.  If it's not, then it's gonna be pretty well the standard.

We decided to do a little experiment.  Our goal was to test water consumption and pressure.  We started on a shower with a full flow head.  We ran water full-blast for two minutes into a five gallon bucket.

When time was up, we marked the water line with red tape.  Next we installed an inexpensive low flow head.

Two minutes later we marked the water line again...This time with blue tape.  Obviously, we saved water.  Our next test was for water pressure.  That's a common complaint with low flow shower heads.

We put shaving cream on a mirror under the full flow head.  15 seconds later the mirror was clean.  We repeated the process under the low flow head.  15 seconds  later the mirror was just as clean.

"You're not cutting down on your pressure - you're cutting down on your flow," affirms Antey.

You'll also be cutting down on your next water bill.

Low-flow shower heads range in price from $10 to hundreds of dollars.
By the way, the water gathered during that experiment was used to water a few plants around the house.