Correspondence: Rafid Alkhaddar, Liverpool Centre for Environmental Technology, Liverpool John Moores University, Byrom Street, Liverpool L3 3AF, UK. Tel: 0151 231 2809; Fax: 0151 231 2815; E-mail: r.m.alkhaddar@ljmu.ac.uk

¹is a reader in Water Engineering at Liverpool John Moores University. Rafid is Director of Studies for Construction and Civil Engineering Studies. He has over 20 years of experience in teaching research and consultancy in water and environmental-related subjects. His research interests are in water and wastewater treatment methods, where he published over 50 scientific papers in refereed journal and international conferences. He managed to attract over £500,000 in research funding to enable him to conduct his research activities. He is a Chartered Engineer, a Chartered Environmentalist and a Fellow of CIWEM.

²is Director of the School of Biomolecular Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University. He has extensive experience in working with industry in process development and quality control. His current research interests focus on water and wastewater use, including water efficiency and physical and biological treatment processes for wastewater. He represents the University in matters related to environmental technology and has published over 80 papers and conference contributions.

Received 28 February 2008; Revised 28 February 2008; Published online 18 June 2008.

Abstract

Overall use of water in an urban indoor leisure centre can be high, so that there are significant incentives to save water, both for direct cost reduction and for indirect saving through the reduction of embedded energy. In addition, both privately owned- and local authority-run leisure centres need to show savings in order to manage drought requirements. Analysis of the temporal patterns and volumes of water used in the different activities with a leisure centre, such as swimming pools, showers, toilets and others can point to where cost-effective saving measures can be implemented. This paper will focus on the factors that must be considered when attempting to reduce the use of water in 'power showers' and is derived from a programme commissioned by United Utilities Plc at Liverpool John Moores University, aimed at reducing domestic water consumption. The results of focus group studies, laboratory trial and home trials can easily be extrapolated to the leisure centre. In order to persuade the user to accept a lower water use it is essential to sustain the 'shower experience' to maintain user satisfaction. A range of commercially available domestic showerheads was examined to determine flow characteristics, (pressure–volume) radial spray distributions at different flow-rates, direct and indirect measures of 'skin pressure' and measurements of vertical temperature profiles. Some simple correlations were derived but it is not easy to relate these to user satisfaction.