Do other water devices in the house have good flow? Garden
hose, fill the mashing machine, sink, etc?

You didn't mention what type of pope. Galvanized is noted
for closing down, but PVC and copper less likely.

As a quick and easy test, I'd suggest to take the shower
head off the angled pipe. Turn the water on, and see if you
have good water flow. It won't be very good for showring.
But, it will help with the diagnosis. Others have suggested
ways to clear a restricted shower head.


--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Zootal" wrote in message
. 97.131...
The water pipes for my house are mostly attached to the
ceiling of my
basement (which makes it super easy to get to!). It starts
out 3/4", and
gets reduced to 1/2". My shower valve has 1/2 threads on it,
so I see the
need to reduce it at some point.

In the shower, the water flow seems to be diminished. One of
my shower head
settings is some sort of water blast, where the water comes
out of a half
dozen large ports. Both hot and cold just dribble. Other
settings work OK,
but none of them give really good volume. I'm thinking that
i'm the victim
of a water mizer shower valve, and that replacing it will
fix the problem.
This is one of those valves where you have no control over
volume - it's on
or off, and all you can do is adjust the temperature.

Question: Will 50 feet of 1/2 pipe reduce the flow of water
such that I
won't get good volume at the shower head? Or should it work
fine and I need
to look somewhere else for the problem (like the shower
valve)?

I can be easily convinced to plumb my house with 3/4 pipe,
but I'd like to
avoid drastic measures like that if not really necessary.
The only place we
really need good volume is the shower, and if 1/2 pipe will
give us that, I
don't need to start gutting my plumbing.