[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

By chuck from Portland, OR on 2/3/2008

I am a design engineer and I am tough on poor design. This shower unit is pretty darn well designed, with the exception of an inability to up the flow if one desires to waste water. :-)

You can take off the hose fitting on the handle of it and remove the small black o-ring that is nested in the green plastic housing under the black drop-in screen, but it only ups the volume slightly. Too bad!

Good design elements:
Hose fittings are deeply knurled so you can take it apart in the shower with wet hands.
Washers are soft so it does not take a lot of torquing to get things sealed up nicely.
The hose is flexible but not so flexible that it gets kinked or tied in knots.
The adjustments on the shower head are smooth with good detents for exact position, but also stay in-between settings if you so desire.
The slide-up-and-down part locks in place with minimal tightening, which is good, because the little knob hurts like mad if you over-tighten it.
The handle drops in to it's holder very nicely - it is positive and solid, but not so angled that it gets jammed and is hard to get out.

Bad design elements:
The settings are 'OK' - there are two that are almost identical, the 'massage' thing barely works (like almost all of them in showers).
Flow is not spectacular on any setting.
Head is a bit too angled to the handle so it doesn't really go straight down if the handle is positioned horizontally. This makes the stream be at and angle always, and only straight down if you are really close to the wall.

Things to watch:
Don't mount the bar too low - the angled head thing is a nuisance if it is too low (I know, I mounted one of ours too low, and it tends to make a mess on the floor because the stream has to be shooting horizontally to reach the end of the tub where I shave and it then runs down the wall and out on the floor).


Overall, I like it. I bought one, used it for a month, and then got a second one for our other bathroom. Homeclick has the BEST PRICE ANYWHERE on it!

Cheers!

By Hal from Bellingham,WA on 12/29/2007

easy to install

[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

By Charles the design engineer from Boring, Oregon on 11/21/2007

Easy to install (two screws), BUT, you'll need a 3mm hex wrench to do it. They don't tell you this, but that's what's needed.

The flow rate is low (saves water) but I like more flow. After examining the inlet with a magnifying glass I realized that there's just a small black o-ring in the inlet that can be removed with a straightened paper clip. It's hidden under the inlet filter screen (which pops out with the same paper clip). The o-ring restricts the flow when it's in and with it out, you get full-flow for an invigorating shower.

I bought one to check it out and and am getting a second one for our other bathroom.

The up-down sliding thing really works easily - just a tiny bit of tightening holds it in pace rock-solid. Even with soapy hands it can be loosened or tightened.

The showerhead does have some useless sprays (unless you need a water-pic for a horse's teeth!), but its other sprays are very nice.

The attachements for the ends of the hose are heavily knurled so it can be gotten on and off with bare hands with no grunting needed.

Overall, an excellent product, though it's a bit spendy for plastic in my mind.