The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment complex to its manager."Last week, all the showerheads in the first three buildings of the Sunnyside Towers complex were modified to restrict maximum water flow to one-thi

At first glance, the owner’s claim that installing restrict maximum water showerheads in all buildings of Sunnyside Corporation would increase profit of the company seems reasonable. However, it not only suffers from logical flaws but also it bases its conclusion upon several questionable assumptions. Before he arrives at the final conclusion, the owner needs to clarify the following points.

In the first place, the owner referred to the report that the usage of water will decrease due to installing restrictive showerheads. However, change of other factors would not be taken into consideration. For instance, residents may start to take a shower longer than before because the showerhead provide less water than before. It is obvious that other factors could offset the saving by restrictive showerheads; therefore, the assumption that restrictive showerheads would misleading its conclusion that Sunnyside Corporation should install the shower heads.

In the second place, the owner pointed out that there are only a few complaints about the restrictive showerheads. Nevertheless, basing his argument on this assumption is not credible because the owner did not provide any quantitative information. Even if the number of complaints are a few, the number of population of this research is also a few, the complaints would be quite severe problem. The author should consider this point in order to verify his assumption that installing restrictive showerheads are not vulnerable.

In the third place, the owner overlooked the time period since Sunnyside Tower has installed the showerhead. Even assuming that the population of the research that he referred to was quite huge; nevertheless, it is possible that most residents do not complain because they had no time last week. They might be busy to work. Besides, they might not come back their home because they travel around. The owner should scrutinize further in order to prove only a few residents complain about the showerheads.

Even assuming the owner can have endorsement to refute these points above, still his argument is doubtful. The owner assumes that restrictive showerheads could reduce the cost of water usage, yet he overlooked the cost to install for all of Sunnyside Towers. In the case the cost to install restrictive showerhead is quite expensive, Sunnyside Corporation would even decrease their profits. The owner should provide the evidence that the cost for installing the restrictive showerheads is lower than the cost reduction of water usage.

As discussed above, the owner was based on the assumptions that were not sufficiently supported. Before he makes the final conclusion, the owner should acknowledge that there are many factors that are involved in this story, and undertake additional investigations to clarify uncertainties pointed out above.