My apartment complex has one centralized boiler system for the whole complex, and the plumbing is such that the farther away you are from the boiler, the less hot water you get, and my apartment is pretty far away. I may be able to compensate with a high flow shower head, but they don’t sell those anymore. I’ve seen some expensive ‘triple showerhead’ designs and may try one, but I wanted to check if any Dopers had a track on ‘pre-ban’ plumbing supplies. Since it’s not illegal to possess and use a high flow head, I don’t think I’m violating any SDMB rules here.
I know this is a boring question, but my lease is up next month and I don’t want to have to move just for more reliable hot water. Any ideas?
Most of the low-flow shower heads have a removable piece inside: remove that, and it’s back to a ‘normal’ flow shower head. It’s set up like this specifically for those who don’t have enough water pressure in their pipes: nothing more annoying than getting a nice new shower head, and not being able to effectively use it because the water pressure is too low to get past that regulator!
[I have done this with my relatively new shower head (4 months old): it was a little white plastic thingy that I just popped out with a screwdriver. Voila, no more problems with the water pressure not being high enough.]
Some of the more expensive home newer ones have a restrictor in them that you can pop out. Some use an odd sort of o-ring/gasket with an internal restrictor that you have to drill a bigger hole through, because if you just take the whole restrictor part out, there’s no seal between the shower head and the wall pipe. In the US, a normal residential pipe is a half-inch inside diameter, but many shower heads are restricted down to a 1/8" inch hole or less.
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My mom hated the showers and faucets in her new house until I went around one day and removed/drilled out all the shower and faucet restrictors. As for the legality of it, who cares? If the gov’t wants people to conserve water, then they should just charge more for it, and if you are willing and able pay for more of it, why shouldn’t you be allowed to use more? - DougC
Thanks for the input, all. I went home during lunch and popped out the flow restrictor - works great! Now I have a real shower again. The SDMB comes through!