How To: Increase Shower Water Pressure

Does your shower function the way that you want it to? Do you have a steady stream of water or would you describe your shower as a trickle of water that takes forever to rinse shampoo from your hair? Most people want a shower that has a lot of water pressure. They want a shower that massages while rinsing away the stress from their day. For that reason, if you don’t have the shower that you want, it is time to increase the shower water pressure in your home.

Water Pressure in Your Home

Not all homes have as much water pressure as we may hope that they would. In apartment buildings, if you have several people washing laundry or taking a shower at the same time, you may not have as much as you would hope, even though the pipes are fine. In a single-family home, you may have good pipes, but little pressure and you may blame it on a faulty pump or something else. Chances are good that if you start thinking smaller, you will get the water pressure you want, without upgrading all the expensive plumbing parts of your home. Your issue may not even be in your home’s plumbing. It could simply be your faucets and your shower heads.

Get the Maximum Amount of Water Pressure

One of the first things you will want to do if you feel that you have zero water pressure in your shower is to clean the shower head. If you have iron build up or other deposits in your shower head, you are losing out on pressure. A good way to clean them is to soak the shower head in vinegar overnight. You can do this by placing a sandwich bag filled with vinegar over the shower head and leaving it overnight or by taking the shower head down and soaking it in a sink overnight.

If that doesn’t work, you may want to take the shower head down and locate the flow restrictor, so that you can remove it. A flow restrictor slows down a shower so that you are not wasting water. The downside is, less water can flow out through your shower head and in homes that are already low on pressure, you may end up with a trickle. You should look at the shower head you have to find out if there is a flow restrictor and how to remove it.

Upgrade Your Shower Head

If neither of those things are helpful and you see no increase in your shower pressure; you may want to upgrade your shower. There are pressurized shower heads available and many of them are very affordable. You can also purchase a cheaper shower head and remove the flow restrictor to see if perhaps your lack of pressure was caused by a clog in the old shower head that you couldn’t remove with vinegar. The best thing about the pressurized shower head is even if your pipes have issues that restrict water flow, you have a combination of air and water mixed to make it more powerful. It is a win/win situation because you can avoid tracking down more expensive ways to increase pressure.