Giessdorf 8 Jet Brushed Nickel Shower Head

First, let me say that I am in favor of conservation. I myself consume less than the EPA daily recommendations for water use per person and am pleased by that. But I also believe that we should be free to choose ourselves how we wish to conserve and not have these choices made instead by government bureaucrats. There is something very wrong with the concept that you can dump thousands of gallons a day on your lawn to keep it green in the desert, but then are forced to use a low flow shower or toilet whose savings pale in comparison to other methods, while often producing very unsatisfactory performance.Federal law prohibits the manufacturer from selling a shower head that uses more than 2.5 gallons per minute, but the law DOES NOT prohibit the home owner from using own a shower head that uses more water. Therefore, it is perfectly OK for you to decide you want a shower that uses more water if you want. However, since the early 90's finding such a shower head, other than older, used ones, has been difficult. Often customers don't even know this. They go to the Big box store and see a rain shower head that is 12 inches across and assume that more water comes out of this head, when in fact it is just decorative and the same amount of flow comes out of such a head as one with only a 1 inch diameter. Do not confuse flow with pressure. Just like a garden hose, you can increase pressure by restricting the outlet port without actually changing flow rate. So, some shower heads have more force behind the jets, but fewer jets to compensate for this in terms of flow.I am a professional shower builder. I am the guy you call if you want a super luxury $30K plus shower. I have been dealing with this issue since the regulations first came out. In the early days after the regulations were first imposed most shower heads just came with a flow restrictor in the inlet neck added to existing designs to meet the new guidelines. Back then it was just a simple procedure to just remove the restrictor and go back to old school flow. Over time, however, more and more shower heads have gotten away from this technique and have just been manufactured with inlets built in to the correct 2.5 gpm size. These are very difficult to modify without damaging the shower head.Over the years we have developed some tricks when building showers to try to tweak more flow through the heads which have become standard practices for me. While these techniques have helped some, the bottleneck has always been the shower head itself, and adding more heads doesn't necessarily help. Adding multiple low flow heads adds water volume but does not give the same effect as more concentrated, heavy streams which is what most people think of when they think higher flow. Especially women when washing their hair. And for an awful lot of my customers who have been wanting an old school, or European kind of shower experience, this has not been a satisfactory solution.This shower head is the solution. It comes with a flow restrictor bushing that allows it to comply with federal reguations, but the homeowner is free to not use the restrictor. At least under current regulations as of this writing. If you install this head without the bushing you will get an old school flow through your shower head that everyone I know who has them has found very satisfying and refreshing. While the head has setting on it to adjust the pattern, the net result that my customers have desired and achieved is heavier and more vigorous streams of water over the body. In fact, many of my customers report taking shorter showers because they feel clean much faster. This shower head truly does solve the problem that my customers have been clamoring about for years.The shower head is also very well built. This is not a cheap head that just gives you more flow. This is a high quality shower head of German construction (It is interesting that in Germany where they are far more environmentally conscious than we are in the US, they don't get worked up over shower head flow like we do here). This head is made of solid brass and you can feel it. It is a very heavy shower head and the fit and finish are excellent. These heads are perfectly at home in very expensive showers. The head comes in four different finishes that can be used to match almost any shower equipment you find these days without problem. I have never had to worry about a discerning customer complaining that these heads don't match the finish properly with the other expensive bathroom fixtures they have chosen. In my book, this shower head is a winner and worth the money. I will continue to use them as long as they are available. I fear the day when they too fall victim to the insular bureaucrats.There is a downside to these heads that I do feel compelled to mention. Unlike low flow shower heads, if you take a hot shower with one of these you will steam up the bathroom very quickly. Your contractor grade shower exhaust fan may not be up to the task of removing all that steam quickly enough to keep you from being surrounded by London Fog. Especially in a very small bathroom. Not that this would be a problem for most people, but if you shower like this often and cannot remove the humidity, it might lead to increased mildew issues.Another thing that could be a potential problem. If you are the kind of person who likes to get in a hot shower and just stay there a long time getting warm. With this head you will get warm very quickly and it feels great! Trust me. But if you have a small water tank and stay there long enough you will run out of hot water much faster than you would if you had low flow heads. On the other hand, in my opinion the hot shower is far more refreshing with this head than with low flow heads and you won't need to stay there as long to get refreshed. But if you have kids who use too much water as it is, and every shower in your house has one of these heads and you have a lot of people taking showers at once or consecutively, your water heater may not be up to the challenge. Of course you could always go with a tankless water heater system to solve this problem. I highly recommend tankless water heaters regardless of the flow of the shower heads anyway.I just love these shower heads and given the number of my customers who do as well, I believe there are many people out there looking for this product. If you are, this is it.

I've had two highly memorable, almost religious, experiences in showers (I'm limiting this, of course, to those experiences involving only the water delivery system itself). The first was in a 1920's mansion in Beverly Farms, in an enormous shower that had at least a dozen heads with water coming at you from three walls and from four or five locations across the ceiling. The second was when I had my first encounter with a gigantic rain shower head. Based on the reviews here and elsewhere, I was expecting my third with this shower head.I tried the Giessdorf with the flow restriction removed (naturally) and from the standard location on the wall, about eight inches above my head. The increase in the volume (not intensity) of water was immediately apparent, but there was no discernible advantage in that, and certainly nothing "religious" about the experience. Moving the pattern adjustment lever did nothing except prove there was really only one useful setting.I enjoy a hot shower and, although I don't move in like Kramer, I like to linger for a while, maybe five to seven minutes. The reviews indicate a potential problem with maintaining hot water if you have a typical storage tank system and like long showers, but I have a kick-ass on-demand system and in the sixteen years I've lived here I have NEVER had a problem with the availability of hot water. Quite the contrary. During the heating season (which includes today) the water starts off very hot and increases to scalding when the burner kicks on to meet the additional demand. In the summer, I can preheat, turn it off, take a five minute shower and the cast iron coil is still producing acceptably hot water at the end.Today, about four minutes in, I felt my first lukewarm then cool water EVER in the shower. I turned the shower control handle more towards hot and then all the way to hot but the water stayed cool. I figured I must have turned the furnace off by mistake, so I terminated the shower and went to check. I hadn't.While the hot water coil was recovering, I replaced the short, downward extension with the Danze 13-Inch S-Shape Shower Arm I use for my 10" rain shower head to see if the increased height above my head would improve the experience. It didn't. The on-demand system once again showed signs of fatigue after about four minutes. So, I installed the flow restriction.It didn't like that at all. Three of the eight nozzles exhibited minds of their own and didn't want to play with the others throughout the range of lever adjustments, shooting off in little pissant streams that ruined any and all patterns the lever was attempting to create.I cannot believe a standard 50 gallon tank could possibly keep up with this shower head.So, I sent it back within the hour of its arrival, thanks to Amazon's outstanding return system.Yes, it's extremely well built, substantial and classy. If you dropped it on your foot you would definitely break some bones. Yes, it throws out a lot of water, but not in any enjoyable way, for me, anyway. I'm sorry to say this because I really was looking forward to something outstanding. So, it's back to the rain shower head which, now that I've removed its restriction (thanks to Michael Giacomin's review - I should've tried that earlier), throws out more than enough water, but not so much as to leave me in the cold.

In other reviews, they mentioned that you could quickly run out of hot water if you totally remove the plastic flow regulator inside the shower head. I read a suggestion to drill holes in that white plastic piece instead. I don't think that is a good idea. Since, the water flow is less strong than my previous shower head. You should just remove that white plastic piece. I feel like I spent quite a lot of money for a blah experience. The pros are that it is a very well made and hefty shower head. But even when I adjust the spray to full blast, it isn't that strong.

This shower head is amazing. I removed the orifice bushing so that my water flow to the head was not restricted. The bushing did not easily come out, so I used a knife to gradually open up the hole size until it was completely open. With that said, I do believe it would still be a great product with the 2.5 gpm restriction or even a slightly larger hole opening, depending on individual preference. I would caution opening the restriction up completely unless you have a hot water system which can handle it. I have a tankless system which is rated for up to 7.5 gpm. If we use any other hot water while we are showering, the demand on the system is too high. I would think one would need a fairly impressive tank system to handle the demand. With no restriction in place, the volume of water is incredible, but the showering experience is unmatched and has me smiling every time I am done.