It was crazy. We know that the pride and joy of old Rome were its aqueducts, which brought fresh running water to cities by force of gravity. They were the major reason for hygiene and sanitation and a sign of civilizational advance.
How is it possible that 2,500 years later, the world’s richest government would turn its back on running water in our homes? It seems simply incredible. It was done in the name of saving water but the burden fell on domestic use, not factory farms and not industry.
Always the question was: What precisely are we saving water for? A good society directs resources toward the good life in our homes. Cut that out and you introduce a huge and unexpected problem.
It became obvious with showerheads, which had flow stoppers by law. It stemmed from a passing line in a 1992 energy act, and further refined in regulations. The stoppers could be removed with pliers but that became more difficult over time. At some point, I found an affordable one made of plastic that had an easily removable stopper. I bought them and hacked them and gave them as gifts to friends.
It was the shower in particular that bugged President Trump, who discovered that he could get a great shower in every country but the United States. Even high-end hotels featured that drizzly spray of tepid water that ended up making the shower take twice as long.
But the problem was not only the showerheads. It really began decades ago with the attack on toilets, the maximum gallons of which kept dropping. More and more flushing was required, and there was another effect. Without enough running through plumbing, there was chemical buildup and muck developing in the pipes, leaving a stink.
The water problem then hit washing machines. Long a student of washing technology, even to the point of finding it mostly more effective to use only the tub, I promise you the following. There is no way to clean and rinse clothes with minimal water.
This nonsense also swept in kitchen and bathroom faucets, such that the pressure alone would never be enough to rinse dishes or shave. As a result, people started having to use all kinds of contraptions to make up the difference.
Indeed, every toilet began to require frequent plunging and replacement parts, every sink had multiple scrapers and sponges and other tricky things. All the clothing became dingy and soapy. It was made worse after phosphates came to be removed by law from all detergents. At that point, wearing clean clothes became a thing of the past.
The dishwashers were compromised too. How is it possible to wash dishes without maximum water? The manufacturers faced the problem in the regulations and overcame it somewhat by running domestic dishwashers for hours and hours. The result is often that the debris stays on the dishes and gets baked on by the hot dryer temperature.
The dishwashing detergent also had its phosphates removed, meaning that soapy film would always stain the glasses.
This has gone on for 30 years now with growing amounts of consumer frustration. People blamed the manufacturers but they weren’t at fault. The government has precise regulations on how all showerheads, dishwashers, toilets, and many other things must be built. It became a kind of American Gosplan.
“Seinfeld” took notice in a famous episode but otherwise, no one ever seemed to act to reverse course.
“Overregulation chokes the American economy and stifles personal freedom. … I hereby direct the Secretary of Energy to publish in the Federal Register a notice rescinding Energy Conservation Program.” He further pokes fun at the mountains of regulations defining showerhead: The government has 13,000 words whereas “the Oxford English Dictionary defines ’showerhead' in one short sentence.”
By way of fairness, this war on water in homes goes back 35 years and longer. Even as a kid, I can recall the fashion for putting bricks in toilet tanks, on the presumption that the manufacturer was profligate whereas consumers should be scrupulous and socially conscious. It was never about water supplies which can be regulated with prices via supply and demand. It was about central planning. It was about mandatory deprivation.
There is still the question of toilets. They are now restricted to 1.6-gallon tanks, whereas they used to be anywhere from 3 to 7 gallons. They worked better in the old days, as everyone knows. Yes, there have been some improvements, including new designs and electric pressure units. But these are all workarounds and not the real thing.
A few years ago, I visited an old hotel from the 1930s that had not been in use in many decades. It was recently purchased with the purpose of renovating it. As I toured the rooms, everything was still there except one thing. Every single toilet had been removed from every single room. They were more valuable than the moldings, desks, beds, and light fixtures.
A gray market in large-tank toilets existed in the 1990s but crackdowns stopped those too. Now they are nothing short of impossible to get anywhere, and I’m unaware of any manufacturer that can legally make one or sell it in any market. None are available on eBay. I doubt that they are even legal to sell.
Tell you what. If Trump liberates toilet tanks, the market for them would be gigantic. I cannot even imagine! Vast numbers of American households would immediately replace theirs in every bathroom.
Can you imagine the sales and profits? They might even compete with iPhones. We are talking tens of millions of units—if only one manufacturer were permitted to sell them and state regulations allowed them.
There’s an agenda item for the Trump administration. Liberate the toilet tank too. America used to be home to the great manufacturers: Kohler, American Standard, Delta, and Moen. It’s another example of an industry that has been largely offshored due to production costs.
I’m not a champion of any form of planning but it would still be amusing to have the government liberate the toilet provided it is made in the USA.
In any case, showerheads are an excellent start. Good showers can begin again in 30 days.
