Why showers go quiet (and why the head takes the blame)
Every litre through the head passes a few dozen holes the size of a needle. Hard water leaves a little calcium behind each time — and a season of showers later, those holes are half their size. The weak shower is almost never weak pipes: it is the smallest opening in the house doing its job too well.
Which part, by the pattern
- The spray is wild — strays, needles missing, white crust on the face → the nozzles. A vinegar bag, then a toothbrush.
- The bare hose blasts strong but the head-on flow stays thin → the filter screen and flow restrictor packed inside the swivel joint.
- The flow changes when the hose bends → the hose: a kink outside, or an inner liner that has quietly collapsed.
The universal move, before anything: unscrew the head and blast the bare hose into a bucket. Strong blast = the head is guilty. Weak blast = the problem is behind it. Ten seconds, and it splits the repair in two.
One honest limit: if every tap in the house runs weak, or the shower has been feeble since the day it was fitted (gravity-fed system, top floor), no head will fix it — and a booster pump on a combi-boiler system is a professional's job, if it's allowed at all.