Removing the flow restrictor valve on your shower head takes less than 60 seconds of work and can drastically improve the water pressure from your shower head.
All you need is a screw, a screwdriver and probably a pair of pliers. Typically it’ll be a small blue or other colored valve inside the shower head, and sometimes has a small aerator mesh or ring in front of it than can easily be pulled out. You can screw into the valve, pull it out with a pair of pliers, put the shower head back on and you’re done!
Side note, depending on your water pressure, this may seem very powerful at first! But if you have long or curly hair, this is wonderful for helping get more soap out of your hair more quickly. This also will use more water, but if you’re like me I end up taking shorter showers since it takes a shorter time to rinse off.
Whether higher pressure is an improvement or not depends on your goals. It uses a lot more water, which has an impact on your water bill and also the environment.
What are the potential downsides to this? In other words, why isn’t it like this stock?
Most states and places cannot sell it without the restrictor. It reduces water consumption.
Many laws like this are such bullshit. Total domestic water use is 60x LESS than just irrigation ALONE (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/total-water-use-united-states). How about we pass some fucking laws to restrict corporate irrigation use rather than just shitting on taxpaying citizens with no lobbyist?
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The water restrictor is there because it’s purpose is to save water. There are really no downsides to removing it if your pressure is low.
The downside is water bill consumption and an increase in your hot water bill, whether that’s NG or electric
Don’t forget too, depending on water tank size and people in the household you will run out of hot water faster. If this is normally 1.5 gpm or 2.5 gpm and you remove it it might make it 3-4 gpm or more. That will mean a 50 gallon tank would run out of hot water in about 12-15 minutes,(it will heat up some so you might get a few more gallons and minutes. So let’s say 20 minutes. If it is just you, no problem. If you have a family/roommates it might be a problem if they are all getting ready around the same time.
I live in an apartment and have a pretty small hot water tank. I changed the whole showerhead to one with higher flow, but now i run out of hot water much faster.
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Its to comply with various regulations around conservation of water, thats why those restrictors are installed.
Huh, didn’t know that. Wanted to try it on mine, unfortunately it has an additional hole that comes uncovered when the seal is removed so water just mainly comes out of there but I will definitey be trying this on the next shower head I purchase
Doesn’t that increase the flow not the pressure? The more water comes out, the less forceful it’ll be = less pressure.
Put differently, if you block some of the streams, the others will have more pressure. If you add more holes, more water will come out but each stream will be weaker. Since you can’t control the water source, changing flow causes pressure to do the opposite.
My shower head doesn’t even have a flow restrictor, it’s just rated for a specific GPM, so when I want something different I just get one with a different rating.
I don’t have one either, so I may be wrong, but I believe the restriction is before the holes. So it’s coming out of the same area, which means it has to have higher pressure to have the same flow rate.
Could you please add a “Why YSK:”? It’s rule #2. It’s also helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. Thank you. :)
