eli5 Why do shower curtains always try to touch you while showering?
In: 6616
[removed]
Many people have pointed out the Bernoulli Principle, which is fair, but I haven’t seen anyone note that it’s one of several hypotheses, and we don’t have a conclusive answer. You can read a little more about it [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shower-curtain_effect)
[Shower-curtain effect (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shower-curtain_effect)
[Wired: Shower Curtain Rises on Ig Nobels (2001)](https://www.wired.com/2001/10/shower-curtain-rises-on-ig-nobels/)
> Schmidt said that **the problem seems simpler than it is, and that most of the people who had attempted to answer the question — apparently, this is an old problem — had only provided theories**. Schmidt, however, is an expert on sprays: shower sprays, fuel injector sprays, that kind of thing. A fluid is forced out of a small opening and thrust into the unpredictable world, and it’s David Schmidt’s job to somehow predict it.
> “I realized that they were all weighing in with their opinions,” he said, “and with these computer simulations I was doing” — for his serious research — “I had something at my fingertips that I could use to answer it.”
> After two weeks of number crunching using a spray simulator that only he has, Schmidt discovered the answer. It wasn’t very stunning, but it was still a provable answer — one which nobody else could produce.
> “**Basically, a vortex sets up**,” he said. “**It’s like a hurricane (of air) turned on its side, and in the center of that is low pressure, and that pulls in near the middle of the curtain. But because of the way tension works in a curtain you get the bottom moving in.**”
Lot of great answers. The solution is to have a curtain that hangs inside the tub, and another that hangs outside. This keeps cold air from rushing in.
I added small weights to the bottom of my curtain. It actually came with some but I added more.
Barely helped if at all. Plus they all ended up falling off anyway because the material ripped
[removed]
Don’t buy the cheapest, thinnest shower curtain. Buy something heavier and thicker and this will be far less of an issue
HOW I FIXED THIS PROBLEM.
I had this problem at an old apartment. Every time I took a shower, the curtain would attack my legs. Not being one to just give up and let life suck, I thought I’d take a closer look at what was going on. In that shower, the shower curtain rod was removable. Turns out, some idiot installed it too far into the shower, letting the curtain hang straight down and allowing for a small air gap to turn into a large gap as air is pulled in at the bottom. Plus, there were no magnets to stick it to the tub with.
I unscrewed the shower curtain rod, and moved it further out away from the shower so that the curtain was on a slight diagonal. The weight of the curtain now was keeping it pinned to the sides of the tub, and the airflow wasn’t strong enough to move it.
[Crude sketch](https://imgur.com/a/Ld2LF2V)
Hot shower water heats up the air in the shower cabin. Hot air rises, escaping through the top of the shower cabin. This creates a relatively low air pressure zone in the shower cabin. Higher pressure air outside of the shower cabin pushes the shower curtain inwards.
Get two curtains. One for inside the tub. One for outside.
Also look for one with weights or magnets on the bottom for the inside.
Latest Answers