I have a rain head, 12", coming out of the ceiling in the shower in the master bath. It's on its own supply valve, so the water temp out of the rain head can be different from the water temp out of the main shower head. Don't use it often, but when I do, I like it. And when they;re both running at the same time, I do like it being a different temp than the water out of the main shower head.

I had planned for body jets in the master shower too. But my wife and I used them several times in hotels and in vacation homes, and they hold no appeal for either of us. So I omitted them when I built our shower.

We have a rain shower head in addition to the wall and hand held heads. I don't like the rain shower very much - if I'm going to get my hair wet, I'm going to wash it and the rain shower doesn't have enough pressure for that. But my husband loves it! I also think it adds a high end look to the shower. We have an appraisal for a refi coming up and I'm hoping that it adds value.

Rain heads are best when on a flow value so they can be adjusted to a slow spitting of water. I like the set this too cold and cool off while having a steam shower. This is the best. LOVE IT.

Now I just need my own steam shower!

I thought about putting one in when I made a bathroom in the basement. I prefer to stand without water in my face and on my head all the time so I did a normal shower head as high as it can go.

I have the rain can coming from the ceiling, rain can from the wall, hand held, standard shower head and 4 body sprays most with separate volume controls.

The rain can from the ceiling is used most the rain can from the wall second and body sprays third. The hand held is mainly for washing the shower and small dog and the standard 3 way adjustable shower head is used the least. The body sprays are used mainly when we have sore spots like legs, back shoulder and use raise the temperature up to around 115 d and have the jets on full volume aimed at those sore areas and it helps.

When I say the rain can from the ceiling and wall get used the most it's because we sometimes shower at the same time and it helps to have separate volume controls................don't ask why.

Once we went thermostatic I'd never go back. I'm going to start a bathroom reno soon and the ceiling mount rain can is a priority.

We opted for body jets because a friend so highly recommended them, and we never used them (maybe a couple of times in the 8 years we lived there with that bathroom remodel).

I had a rain shower head, out of the wall not ceiling. I don't think I'd like a ceiling one, I don't want water in my face. We had 4 body sprays (not jets which I think are more forceful) and we absolutely LOVED them. For this shower reno we are doing the same (wall mount rain shower can, it's not huge) and 2 body sprays. To get more than the 2, I'd have to upgrade my shower head, plus cost of the additional sprays and rough-ins, I was really getting out of my budget. So I'm hoping the 2 will be just as enjoyable. I did also get a handheld shower, that had adjustable streams on the head, so I'm hoping that will be an upgrade in a sense (old shower was regular spray hand held). I am using Delta, I'll report back once it's in. Won't be for a few weeks yet.

FWIW, ours were both spray and jet - they were adjustable.

We just finished a bathroom with a handheld plus a rainhead on the ceiling. I use them both, usually just a half a minute of the rainhead at the end. It looks cool and it feels nice, but now that I have it, I would say I don't consider it a "must have" at all. Body sprays? Never tried them, so I don't really understand the appeal, plus that house is on a well and we are not actively looking for ways to use more water.

It was all the range 10 -20 years ago to have showerss that looked like a car wash, with jets every which way! You can't build these in CA anymore and code is only one funtioning water source at a time. Not that you can't go back and change something after the inspection, but there doesn't seem to be much desire for the multi-jet showers we all aspired to own.

We like to have one strong shower head and a separate handheld on an adjustable bar for cleaning the shower, washing the dog or when recovering from surgery when you need to control the water stream more accurately.

I have never had the opportunity to try a body jet, but while staying at a hotel that had a regular shower head on one wall and the handheld on the adjoining wall, I enjoyed having the water coming from both directions during my rinsing. I plan to do that for sure. I am debating getting a rainhead. I adjust my current showerhead to large soft blobs of water because a harder spray hurts my skin. DH does not get his face wet when showering, so the rainhead would be for me only. Not sure I really need it, but not sure I want to skip it and wonder about it, either! I am definitely getting a thermostatic valve and individual volume controls. Just not sure if it will be a two head or three head system.

Happyalison, are you getting the H2OKinetic heads from Delta?

I prefer a rain can ceiling mount with at least 200 spray nozzles, to any other shower head. I like body sprays but need at least 4. The key is to

-have them on separate adjustable volume controls both rain can and body jet/spray.
-purchase good quality rain cans as well as body jets and it's night and day difference between the low quality and higher.

We had friends redo there bathroom and they installed the ceiling mount rain can and body jets as per our recommendation and they didn't like it. One day they stayed overnight and at breakfast time they raved at how much more they liked our rain can and body jets compared to there's. In the end, they replaced theirs and were much happier with the end result. Not all rain cans and body jets are created equal. They also mentioned they like the way our body jets per positioned compared to there's.

Renosarefun:
Any way you can tell us something about the differences in the two? Would love to be able to understand more about the differences in what's available.
Thanks

We bought house with two adjustable spray shower heads on walls at 90 degree angle and a rain head in the ceiling--no body jets--

I never use the rain head and my husband only rarely...he used to take shower with both the wall heads before we got problem that prevented true hot water getting to them...now one head is great.

Maybe my lack of interest in the body jets is just no exposure but we are doing remodel of master bath in vacation house soon and those aren't on our list...just wall-mounded shower head and a bar-mounted hand held...

renosarefun, there is no prohibition to naming names here. What brand of rain can is it that you and your friends like so much better?

For those of you who have rain and jets shower, do you have enough water pressure to run it? How do you solve that problem? I always want one, but I don't think I have enough water pressure even for my regular shower head.

My water pressure is approximately 60 psi with 1/2" copper and I have a standard 50 gallon hwt. I start noticing a reduced flow when I reach around 9 gallons per minute. My Pfister system is set up for 12 gpm and although I can reach that it's not at full flow due to my water pressure.

As for whether you like options like body spray, rain can etc, I see it as to each there own. We use the ceiling mount rain can 95% of the time, the body sprays 40% of the time and the hand held 20% of the time. The numbers add up to more then 100% as we tend to use the body sprays with the rain can and the hand held also when more than one person showers at the same time. Again the key is to position each fixture in a position that you feel with product the best feel/effect and purchase higher quality fixtures for better results. .

Renosarefun, Let me ask a dumb question first, how do you know what your water pressure is in the first place? My water is from community well, don't know if that makes any difference.

There is a gauge that you can purchase at Home Depot, I just added a fitting for a total cost of about $15.00 and checked both inside my home at several points and outside. You just screw it onto a faucet and turn it on. I wanted to know the interior pressure for the thermostatic shower system install and outside for a future underground irrigation system. Depending on the distance of the faucet (where you attach the gauge) to the main water line it can change by maybe 5 psi, but that's not very significant. Personally I noticed a difference of about 2 psi.

Since the purchase I lent out the gauge about half dozen times to friends so it's been useful. Maybe a neighbor has one you can borrow if your inclined to know what your pressure is.

Water pressure is water pressure regardless of where it comes from.

Sara_in_philly

I never consider a question "dumb" as that's how we learn.

nancyinmich

Sorry I missed your post.

I purchased the Pfister 8 1/4" thermostatic rain can and I believe it has self cleaning around (200) nozzles. Pfister has several different rain cans but I purchased this one as it had a good price point and was on sale on Amazon.com for around $50.00 for brushed nickel on a list price of around $200.00. It comes with the arm and flange. I liked it so much I purchased a couple more. It comes with a restrictor down to 1.5 gpm but I removed it on one shower and it does make a difference. The restrictor is simply a stainless steel screen.

meanom

Sorry I also missed your post.

The friend in question had the Riobel thermostatic system and the difference was, the riobelbody sprays were designed in a way that the water flow didn't react well with change in water pressure, plus the nozzle's were designed more like a shower head rather than a rain can. As for the Riobel rain can, maybe it was the specific rain can they had but it only has 100 nozzle's and it didn't really feel like a true rain experience as the water flow was more forceful rather than a gentle stream of rain.. I guess you had to be there as I can't put it into words.

In conclusion Pfister has two different sets of thermostatic systems (not including the shower panels which I stay away from) the 7.0 gpm with the volume and temperature in one valve and the 12 gpm with seperate volume and temperature valves, Each system has separate styles of body sprays rain cans etc. I installed my own system and went with the 12 gpm system since I like the body sprays, rain cans etc. I believe the key is to have a good volume control and set up where as you can adjust it so that you can have 12 drops of water from a rain can/body spray fall per minute up to thousands per minute depending on your wants, needs, and desires.

If I can be personal for a sec.....I like to trickle down the ceiling mount rain can down to around 1/4 volume to run down my back to keep my body.........hot, while I lather up. Since the rain can is ceiling mount I don't have to turn around, I simply lean forward or back to direct the water flow from the ceiling.

Ok, too much info..........let's move on...........

Nancyinmich, no I debated that, but we went with the simple body sprays (not jets). Some reviews of the H20 kinetic said they couldn't really tell of the 'wave' motion. Also my husband is much taller than I, and you can't adjust the direction of spray. It sounded good, but I opted to go the simple route. We had simple body sprays before and liked it, so I just repeated that.

We put in rainheads in our remodel and really like them. We don't have jets. We have the Kohler 8" ones in both bathrooms. When I was looking for shower heads, advice I got from a couple of different places was to go with smaller diameter rainheads because you can stand under them and not feel like you're drowning. I've never tried a larger one so I don't know if that's really the case with the larger ones or not. Ours put out plenty of pressure. In our master bathroom we also have a handheld shower wand which is nice to have, and great when you want concentrated water jets (for lack of a better word) to beat against a sore neck etc..., but we use the rainhead much more often than the handheld.

Renosarefun, thank you for the info about the gauge! I am going to look it in HD or Lowes. So you bought shower head and body jets separately, they are two separate systems then?

This is a very useful thread, it helps a lot in considering what to do with my shower. Thank you everybody!

Sara_in_philly

Different manufactures have different set ups, in the case of Pfister there lower thermostatic line comes as a kit with temperature/volume control, shower arm, flange and rain can, with optional tub spout. The higher end line does not come in a kit, everything is custom designed based on the allowable 12.0 gallons per minute flow rate.

There are vendors that preassemble various Pfister thermostatic fixtures to create several design options but in my case I opted for the following fixtures below as I wanted to create my own design to allow any one fixture to operate, any two fixtures together, or all fixtures together with the exception of the toe tester as I didn't think one would want a toe tester to operate while the rain can, hand held, four body sprays and shower head were on, if you know what I mean. As for the set up, I agree it's a bit overkill, but then I'm that type of person and build my bathroom with that mindset. Now picture my wife shaking her head throughout the bathroom reno thinking I'm over the top.

Pfister high end thermostatic.

One temperature control.
Three volume controls,
One diverter valve.
One ceiling mount rain can.
One multifunction hand held shower head.
One multifunction shower head.
Four body sprays.
One toe tester.

Wow! Renosarefun, with a set up like that, how would anybody want to get out of shower:-)

What's a toe tester, anyway?

Sara_in_philly

The thermostatic valve is set up for a tub spout but since it's shower only I used that part of the valve to install a small body spray for:

Washing the Yorkie, (dog)
Filling up pails of water
Washing your feet only if needed.
Testing the temperature before getting in, but with thermostatic you already know the temperature.
Aiming a body spray upward.

The other options can be left up to your imagination.

Renosarefun, thanks for all your help! I am sure I will come back ask more questions when I get to the design stage.