Drill a hole in it. Alternately, try heating up a nail with a lighter and poking that through the plastic piece.
Reported for spam and zombie resurrection.
I can’t say I’m bothered by this. It was an informative response by someone who knows what he is talking about,
Zombie resurection is ok thes days
As a guy who has taken out rubber restrictor, and drilled out hard plastic restrictors. I don’t have a problem with the guy, hope he has some success actually serving the public.
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I have removed the post prior to EvilTOJ’s above. It may have been on-topic spam, but it was still spam. Had the poster (ShowerBlaster) made it less of a commercial – or used the appropriate forum, which in this case would have been Marketplace – I might have left it, but he signed up just for the purpose of promoting his product in GQ. That’s not permitted.
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Likely too late to help the OP. It is EPA regulations and hard to get around. I think nearly everything you can buy meets their regulations. I would have drilled the biggest hole in the black plastic I could.
The EPA regulations specify a certain maximum flow at 80 psi.which may make a decent shower. However, very few well pumps put out that much. I had to replace my shower valve, no tub, last year. The valves they sell for that mostly are tub/shower valves with a pipe plug in the lower outlet. Aha. I moved the plug to the top, and routed the bottom outlet around and up to the top.
I don’t want Niagra Falls to shower in, but I do want to be able to rapidly run out the cold water in the lengthly line from the water heater. The valve is a Moen. I can pull the knob out, crank it around to full hot, and after the hot water arrives turn it back to warm, and push it in a little to reduce the volume. Also, as the cartridge in our whole house filter nears the end of its life, pressure drops off so I may still need it wide open.
I removed the restrictor from the head years ago.
I went to a plumbing supply store to purchase a shower head that would provide more oomph and the guy showed me what my problem probably was, and he was right. He showed me a shower head that had one of those little plastic restrictors in it. Nope, you can’t remove it, but, as he showed me, you can place the head of a small screwdriver onto it and whack it. That will knock it loose. Since the shower head itself is basically hollow, that little piece may rattle around inside (if you can’t shake it out after having busted it), but the flow will be increased greatly. QED
p.s. - I’ll turn myself in to the eco-police the same day I go in to confess to tearing off the tags on my mattress.
The best shower I’ve ever taken was fed by a 3/4 inch pipe. This solves a lot of problems. Most showers are fed by 1/2 inch pipes.
I put a low-flow shower head in my bathroom. IMO low-flow heads increase the shower pressure – which is kind of the point. By restricting the flow the same amount of water has to come out through a smaller opening, so it comes out faster. I prefer low-flow heads.
There is a reason why they call it low-flow.
I agree that water pressure increases with low flow. In fact, the maximum pressure you can get is with a no-flow showerhead 
My building stole my shower head (that I’d had for years) and replaced it with some eco-friendly 1.5 gallon per minute piece of shit. The water pressure was so bad, I had to spend nearly twice as long in the shower to feel properly rinsed off. Irritating and pointless? Yes, please!
Anyway, I bought a Waterpik that looks exactly like this one. It’s the same shitty low-flow 1.5GPM by default, but you can remove the restrictor to get 2.5GPM, which is very acceptable to me. You’ll need a hemostat or very long and skinny needlenose pliers to remove the flow restrictor. The specs on the linked page list 10GPM, which is almost certainly an error. If true, it’s certainly passing through anything your plumbing can offer it. Again, the 2.5GPM is very acceptable, IMO.
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
I put a low-flow shower head in my bathroom. IMO low-flow heads increase the shower pressure – which is kind of the point. By restricting the flow the same amount of water has to come out through a smaller opening, so it comes out faster. I prefer low-flow heads.
[/QUOTE]
As TFD pointed out, your logic is kind of busted. Sure, you need water pressure to rinse off detergents, but you also need water volume. Those Cool Zone misting systems the NFL uses in warm weather games? I’m sure the PSI is impressive, but I sure wouldn’t want to try to shower under one.
1/2" Sched 40 pipe maxes at 7GPM. I don’t think anyone would complain about a 7GPM shower. If you had a multi-head shower setup with rain bars and shit, you might notice a difference with 3/4" pipe. You’d probably also need a local pump to disperse all that water.
As I mentioned, the EPA rating is at 80 psi, far higher than may of us enjoy at the end of a long run of half inch pipe. I think the standard cut in pressure for a well pressure switch is 30 psi.
Low-flow heads provide plenty of volume. You need less volume because the water is moving faster. Thus, it rinses off the detergents.
I’ve been using low-flow heads for almost 25 years, and I prefer a little fast water over a lot of slow water.
I recently stayed at a hotel where the shower head was about 6’’ in diameter and had many fine jets of water. I loved it. However, I am sure such a head would do a miserable job here at home with the lower water pressure.
Sorry EPA, one size doesn’t fit all.
I was actually referring to a pump local to the bathroom, not the residence. But if your well pump can’t push any more, the throughput of the pipe makes no difference, does it? Maybe it does, my question isn’t rhetorical.
Low-flow shower heads by definition provide a lower volume of water over time. Look at what I bolded in your statement in my last post. Read The Flying Dutchman’s post again. If you still think low-flow shower heads are great, that’s fine. What I bolded in your statement and what TFD pointed out in the post before me, is that you made a statement that defies reality.
It’s true that you can have more than enough water over a set period of time to properly rinse yourself. It’s equally true that you can have not enough over the same period of time, no mater how hard you get blasted with it.
I misspoke.
The point I was trying to make is that restricting the opening increases the pressure, and didn’t see my ‘same amount’ phrasing because I was thinking about the pressure increase.
Still, with regard to LFSHs, a smaller amount of water delivered at a higher pressure does a better job of rinsing off the soap than traditional shower heads did.
Fair enough, but I disagree, depending on just how low-flow the shower head is.
2.5GPM is still fairly low-flow in historical terms, and I’m fine with it. 1.5GPM or lower is, in my opinion, a false economy. There is a minimum volume of water I need to rinse myself, and at 1.5GPM, I am simply waiting for enough water to do the job. Unnecessarily so, and with great aggravation. I’m curious what your shower head output is. Take a look at it, it’s not unlikely that the rating is printed somewhere on it.
Heh. I’m not curious to look. (Actually, I should be in bed.) Based on a quick google search, I’ll guess it’s 2.5 gpm. More than enough to rinse me. (I don’t turn the faucet on very high.) Like them or not, they do do what the OP asked, which was how to increase pressure at the shower head.
Yeah, there’s obviously no way he could have mixed up pressure with volume of water. 