Most shower heads purchased today will either have flow restrictors already installed/integrated within the shower head or will be included in the shower head package as an optional element to place within the shower head. This is to control water consumption and they have become more prominent in recent years due to an increased awareness of domestic water consumption.
Some shower flow restrictors are added as an additional link in the plumbing line itself, in between the shower head and the supply line. The housing for these will typically be metal like the supply piping, but the inside will be plastic. Both integral shower flow restrictors and added flow restrictors may offer multiple different plastic disks that are interchangeable and can be swapped out to allow different rates of gallons per minute flow. A typical flow rate for a water restrictor used in shower applications is 1.5 or 2.5 gallons per minute. Shower flow restrictors are usually plastic and are not built for rigorous service.
Industrial grade flow restrictors can also be used as shower flow restrictors. They are installed in the same way that the external shower flow restrictors are, in between the supply line and the shower head. Because they are made of more durable materials, the risk of them breaking and requiring an expensive trip by the plumber to fix is eliminated. The cost of an industrial grade flow restrictor is much less than plumber fees.
Industrial flow restrictors are used in a wide variety of industrial applications and deliver much higher pressure and temperature capabilities than simple shower restrictors. They also can be built for much larger line sizes and offer flanged connections in addition to threaded connections.
They are used anywhere that flow rates need to be held to a steady rate with no significant variation in the flow rate. Because flow restrictors only allow a predetermined amount of water through, the flow rate is constant on the downstream side of the device even if it is highly variable on the upstream side of the device.
Mechanical flow restrictors, like KOBOLD’s, are self-actuating. The force of the flow in the pipe creates the energy for operation and they do not require power to operate, nor do they require any pneumatic lines. This reduces the total elements involved in flow restriction. There is less to break and cost savings are delivered by only requiring one element instead of multiple elements to restrict the flow. They will also operate in areas where there is no power source and will continue to operate if there is a localized power failure.