The first place to start is your hot water heater and the amount and volume of water it produces. 50 gallons isn't big enough to run all of what you want for longer than about 4 minutes. Most water headers need to be upgraded to run these giant car washes for people. And most body sprays never get used except for the first month. The novelty wears off quickly, especially when you can only do a 4 minute shower before the hot water runs out. In a drought sensitive location, such showers are criminal to even think about.

You might also want to personally experience a rain head before you decide to choose it. It IS like standing in the rain. Less pressure, and just a plain soaking. As far as placement, straight out of the wall for rain heads is a poor choice for a rain shower. Especially for a big heavy head.

You need to visit a showroom that has some of these things installed, like a Fergusons. I don't think you'll be as excited about all of it after you've experienced it. The single old fashioned head and a hand shower can do a pretty darn good job, and won't require you completely redoing your plumbing in order to enjoy.

I don't have any advice, other than to think hard about why you want the body sprays. A friend highly recommended them, so we got them (sounded great). If they were used five times in 8 years, I'd be surprised.

There is a big backlash against these types of showers, so check with your local codes to see if they are even allowed. With folks in CA banning watering lawns, etc. some localities are prohibiting multiple shower functions as well.

Excellent advice here. To be clear, the rain shower head is coming out horizontally via a pipe and just not attached to the shower wall. My wife prefers this rather than directly from the ceiling as it allows us to completely remove it for a traditional shower head if we hate the rain shower.

Are we saying that there are not two types of rain shower heads (thick vs. thin) as indicated by the sales consultant? Ironically, she is a manager at Furgeson which did not have a shower for me to feel the output. The problem is there are soo many options with wide variety in price range. I must admit, I am cheapos (but will spend lavishly if I want to) but I mean, it's just metal? How is the $500 rain shower head any diff from the $100?

Also, I don't need to support concurrent output from rain shower head, hand held, and body sprayers. However, I would like rain shower head and body sprayers at the same time if possible. i assume I could get ones that don't have a heavy flow to accommodate my existing hot water heater.

Given mongct's math above, it looks like that I am going to max out my 1/2" piping with 4 X 1.8GPM body sprayers. I guess that means I can only use one output at a time unless I want to reduce body sprayers to 3 or get lower output shower output. What output is a traditional rain shower head? Perhaps I could do 3 sprayers and the rain shower head given its (assuming) low output?

I have a setup similar to what you're discussing. It's a his and hers shower, and one side has the top showerhead plus two body sprays. DW insisted that she would never use the body sprays, so her side only has the overhead spray and a handheld.

Soooo, I'll give you one guess which side has gotten used exclusively for the past 10 years? Yup, my side with the two body sprays. It's definitely a luxury but we absolutely love it. The body sprays are on the same wall as the overhead spray and everything is adjustable via diverter, so there's no sense of being drowned or pummeled or being in a car wash.

No problems with running out of hot water for a typical shower (I'd guess the 5-10 minute range). We have a 75 gallon water heater with a 3/4" fitting. Although I think the plumbing in the shower is 1/2".

If you do go with body sprays, make sure you get the piping done up in a loop or manifold or whatever plumbers call it. That's to even out the pressure to the heads. I'm pretty sure my plumber skimped on it as pressure from the bottom spray is noticeably weaker than the spray above it. Oh, we also have a rainhead in a guest bath. I moved the rainhead over to the master bath for a couple days to try it out and hated it. YMMV.

In our master bath, we have a 10" rainshower head, a handheld on a slide bar and three body sprays. All Hansgrohe. Everything runs on its own valve. Almost every time we shower we use a combo of the rain head and the body sprays. It is wonderful. I would never go back to a regular shower head and I would miss the body sprays if I couldn't have them. There is good pressure from the 10" head. It's not like a fire hose, but it is not a gentle rain either. I think it might be different if the head were bigger. Our shower is 4 feet by 5 feet. Pipes are 3/4".

I positioned the body sprays so that they hit my upper back, lower back and hamstrings. My husband is a foot or so taller than I am--I think he gets calves, hams and mid-back. Our sprays are somewhat adjustable. I have them angled in because we have no shower door or curtain. It all works perfectly.

We only use the handheld to clean the shower or when I want to shower without washing my hair, which is about once a week in the winter.

Thanks chiefneil and nycbluedevil. Given the cost of the bathroom ($35-$40K), adding 3-4 body sprayers is like getting floor mats in the new car. I am sure I will love them given my love for showers (I am a 2-3 a day guy). It's my moment to just relax.

Aside from going to a showroom and seeing/feeling via hand the rain showers, how do I decide? I keep seeing a huge variety of prices but I see the same disc with holes that let water fall down. What am I missing?

Also, I am planning to have thermostatic controls including separate volume controls for each output. Similar to the rain shower head, it seems like I just need to find a showroom to determine which type of body sprayers. The Delta are attractive as I can interchange the head.

I wouldn't stress too much about the fixtures. There's really just a couple of options to consider with the body sprays - hard/massage, or soft/volume. We went with the softer type.

Our fixtures are Kohler, and the body sprays are interchangeable as you mentioned. Well they all are, they just screw on to a standard fitting so I imagine we could swap them out for Grohe/Moen/whatever if we really wanted to.

4-5 total heads is a lot. You may want to check your water pressure to verify you'll be able to drive them all.

"The shower is 73"L X 43"W with a complete glass enclosure except for the back wall which is a half wall with a bench."

If it is a complete glass enclosure except for that half wall, exactly where are are all your separate thermostatic controls, volume controls and spray heads going to be located?

badgergal: http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4e/33/15/4e33157f9209d94effb4a6e3392c90bf.jpg

Add a bench to the half wall and make the overall size bigger.