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Sustainability

Because You Care About Environmental Impact and Sustainable Living

Every time you replace a less efficient shower head in your home, apartment, or institutional or commercial building with a water- and energy-conserving High Sierra Showerheads® model, you help support a better future for the planet.

For example, by switching from a 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm) shower head to one of High Sierra’s 1.5 gpm models, each and every month you will:

  • Save water. Save 600 gallons – equivalent to the contents of 120 water cooler bottles – of fresh, clean water from
    unnecessarily going down the drain.
  • Save energy. Save 94 kWh of electricity or 3.2 thermal units of natural gas no longer needed to heat that water.
  • Cut greenhouse gas emissions. Reduce your household, organization, or business’s greenhouse gas emissions by 98 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) (with an electric water heater) or 37 pounds of CO2 (with a gas water heater).

These savings estimates are based on two people using a shower head daily, each taking a ten-minute shower. If more people use that shower head or anyone takes longer or more frequent showers, you’ll save even more. (Check out “The assumptions and math behind our sustainability impact” below.)

We’re Metal – They’re Plastic.

We aren’t referring to our taste in music or claiming other shower head makers are insincere.

It’s about the materials we use to make our shower. High Sierra’s Shower heads are made of metal. Their core parts are made of solid brass and stainless steel, and their tips and other decorative parts are made from heavy-duty aluminum. Our units’ non-metal parts are made from the highest quality silicone rubber, a non-reactive material widely used throughout the medical and food industry.

Nearly all other affordably-priced shower heads today are composed primarily of plastic. The shower heads with a metal look have an ultra-thin plating as a top coat to cover the plastic.

Why Do We Leave Plastics Out Of Our Designs?

Plastics and Polymers are known for their negative impact on the environment. For cost-effectiveness, manufacturing has gradually replaced natural resources, like metal, with plastics through the years. The chemical compounds and additives found in plastic products are well documented to cause a significant toll on human health and development. Beyond the health risks, plastics break down quickly from wear, temperature fluctuations, and naturally occurring minerals found in the water supply.

Say No To Plastic

Our designer shower heads are constructed of solid brass and stainless steel – not made of plastic. High Sierra Showerheads® designed its line of luxurious products to align with its commitment to be mindful of its environmental impact. Our all-metal shower heads, accessories, brushings, and adapters are not only eco-friendly but also save money, and water, while enhancing your home’s bathroom decor.

Materials Have An Impact On Our Environment

Metal shower heads like High Sierra’s are highly durable. Because you typically won’t replace them as often, they use fewer resources.

Plastic shower heads are far more breakable – When a shower head made of plastic has a chip or crack, it needs to be replaced. Each time a broken plastic shower head is thrown away, it adds waste to landfills – or worse. And each time a new plastic shower head is purchased, it results in more energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from its manufacture, transport, and packaging.

The metals in High Sierra’s shower heads are highly valued. And they’re extensively recycled. For example, steel is the most recycled material on the planet, with an overall recycling rate of 86% in 2014. Recycling metals like steel and brass (a copper and zinc alloy) saves energy, when compared to mining and refining pure metals. And the recycled metals perform equally as well as new materials.

The plastic in other shower heads, made from fossil fuel-derived chemicals, is cheap, bulky, and unwanted after use. Only 9% of plastic gets recycled. And unless its sources are pure, each new generation of recycled plastic typically degrades in performance. There are many different types of plastic. Sometimes, manufacturers use a mix of plastic compounds that contaminate a batch combining the reinforcements, fillers, and colorants found in some plastic products. Typically products made from plastics are discarded. Today, global plastic waste totals approximately 381 million tons per year. The U.S. is the most significant contributor. In 2010. Some 8.8 million tons of additional plastic ended up in our oceans in 2010 alone. That’s equivalent to pushing five plastic grocery bags of plastic trash directly into the oceans from every single foot of coastline around the world in that year alone. The negative environmental impact of mismanaged plastic waste and its harm to oceans, wildlife, human health, and the planet will continue to be a problem without intervention.

A 2017 United Nations conference fact sheet estimated that plastic waste kills up to 1 million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals each year, along with deaths to marine turtles and countless fish. And we humans are not immune from this impact: we’re increasingly ingesting plastic-related chemicals from the seafood we eat.

Bottom line: When choosing a shower head, consider the materials used to make it.

Sustainable, Compact Designs

High Sierra Showerheads® most popular shower head model is also our smallest: the Classic PLUS™. It fits in the palm of your hand. Measuring about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide and weighing under 5 ounces, it’s one of the industry’s most compact shower heads. Both its physical and carbon footprints are sleek and minimal.

The Classic PLUS is mighty for its size, immersing you in an invigorating spray of large, heavy, high-energy droplets. Customers with long or thick hair consistently review its shower spray as powering off shampoo and other hair products better than any other water-conserving shower heads they’ve ever used. The Classic PLUS is also a top-reviewed shower head, with Best Picks from CNET, Wirecutter (a New York Times company), CNN Underscored, Popular Science, and others!

Instead of creating oversized rain showers that look impressive – but too often drizzle out a disappointingly anemic spray – the Classic PLUS give you a fantastic showering experience in a compact package.

And speaking of packaging …

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Eco-friendly Packaging

Many shower heads come with extra packaging. Like hard plastic cases for shelf display, which you have to laboriously cut away and then throw away, going into a landfill.

In contrast, High Sierra’s products ship with less packaging. And of a more ecologically-friendly kind.

Our compact Classic PLUS™ model, for instance, is packed in an equally compact, recyclable cardboard box that’s just big enough to hold and protect it – and not a bit larger.

Solar-powered Shower Head Manufacturing

In 2019, High Sierra installed a 10.46 kW solar array, offsetting 100% of the electricity we use at our factory site for assembly and general operations.

We’re hoping this will set an example for the entire shower head industry!

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The assumptions and math behind our sustainability impact.

While some vendors claim sustainability benefits, we document them. (Hey, we’re nerds.)

When calculating your sustainability impact from switching to one of our shower heads, here are the assumptions we made; the simple, understandable math we used; and the data on which we relied:

All savings estimates are based on:
  • Replacing one 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm) low-flow shower head with any of High Sierra Showerheads’ 1.5 gpm shower head models.
  • Two people using this shower head daily, each taking a ten-minute shower.

Your savings could be greater if more people share the shower, if they take longer and/or more frequent showers, if the water is left running to warm up, or if the shower head being replaced uses more than 2.5 gpm (perhaps because its flow restrictor has been removed or modified, or the shower head is an older, less efficient model).

And savings could also be less, for instance, if just one person uses the shower, or the replaced shower head is already a more efficient low-flow model that uses 2.0 gpm or less.

Save water estimates based on:
  • By replacing a 2.5 gpm shower head with a 1.5 gpm shower head, you save one gallon of water every minute your shower head is fully running. When two people each take one, ten-minute shower per day, that’s 20 minutes spent showering per day, thus (rounded for simplicity) 600 minutes showering per month (30 days times 20 minutes) – and 600 gallons saved.
Cut greenhouse gas emissions estimates based on:
  • When using an electric hot water heater, nationwide 2016 US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data of an average of 1,041 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted per MWh of electricity generated (hence 1.041 pounds of emissions per kWh of electricity generated), multiplying that by the 94 kWh saved monthly from not having to heat 600 gallons of water. (This emissions average reflects the mix of sources used to generate the nation’s electricity, including natural gas, coal, petroleum, nuclear, hydropower, wind, solar, and biomass.)
  • When using a natural gas water heater, EIA’s figure of 117.0 pounds of CO2 emitted per million BTUs of energy generated by burning natural gas (hence 11.7 pounds of emissions per thermal unit, equivalent to 100,000 BTUs), multiplying that by the 3.2 thermal units saved monthly from not having to heat 600 gallons of water.
Save energy estimates based on:
  • It takes one British Thermal Unit (BTU) of energy to heat one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit (1°F). One gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds. Hence it takes 8.3 BTUs to heat one gallon by 1°F, or 4,980 BTUs to heat 600 gallons. Assuming that your household water comes in at 55°F, and that your water heater heats it to 120°F, you’d need 323,700 BTUs to heat up 600 gallons by that 65°F difference.
  • Using the American Physical Society’s conversion factors of 1 kWh of electricity = 3,412 BTUs, and 1 thermal units (“therm”) of natural gas = 100,000 BTUs, heating that water requires either 94 kWh of electricity or 3.2 therms of natural gas.

This calculation is an approximation and your actual savings may vary. The water flowing into your building might be colder or warmer than assumed, thus requiring either more – or less – heating energy; every water heater is not fully efficient in turning electricity or natural gas into heat, thus requiring more heating energy; hot water flowing through your building’s pipes may lose some heat before reaching your shower, thus also requiring more heating energy; and your shower water may include some cold water along with your hot water, particularly if you don’t use your shower’s hottest setting, thus requiring less heating energy.

Because all of these factors may offset, and will depend on your specific site, water heater, plumbing layout, pipe insulation, and showering practices, we’re using the much simpler calculation above.

Over and above what you’ll save in your home, apartment, or institutional or commercial building, your water supplier will also realize savings on energy used and greenhouse gases emitted, further benefiting the environment.

By replacing your higher-flowing shower head with a High Sierra 1.5 gpm model, they’ll save by not having to transport 600 gallons of water to your home or business each month, by running pumps or otherwise. Nor will they need to treat those 600 gallons of water prior to their arrival, and (in many cases) once again before they’re discharged back into rivers, lakes, or oceans. That also reduces their usage of treatment chemicals, as well.

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Two Year Warranty

High Sierra Showerheads® warrants each new shower head it manufactures to be free from defective materials and workmanship. High Sierra Showerheads® agrees to remedy any such defect or replace the unit, at our option, provided the unit is delivered to us, intact, with all transportation charges prepaid to our factory, for a period of 2 years from the date of sale to the original purchaser.

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Sixty Day Money Back Guarantee

If for any reason you are not 100% satisfied with the High Sierra Showerhead®, you may return it for a refund or exchange. Just return the product to us in like-new condition within 60 days from the date it was shipped to you, and we will refund the full purchase price less shipping costs, which are nonrefundable. High Sierra Showerheads® reserves the right to determine whether a full or partial refund or an exchange is merited based on the condition of the returned merchandise.