returning the Oxygenics shower head

[JiminDenver]

After reading the post about the Oxygenics shower head, I had high hopes for it when I got us one before our last trip. The stock head can be useable with an extremely low flow that made the pump only pulse on and off. The hope was the Oxygenics would make that a more pleasing experience.

The problem we had was that the flow out of the Oxygenics when it was off was about the same as the lowest usable flow from the stock head in use. It does dribble when off but much, much less than the Oxygenics does.

The other thing is that the minimal flow required to get the Oxygenics to do it's thing is considerably higher than I expected.

Replacing the control valve with a ball valve would fix the first issue but when I had the flow high enough to make the head spin, I felt rushed because of how much water I was using. I put the old head back on after three days just so that we wouldn't run out of the 60 gallons we had for the trip.

[pnichols]

rekoj71 wrote:
The "Pencil Jet" is what happens when you don't have enough pressure on it. I understand the OP's opinion and if he is trying to take a shower under a dribble of water to save his water then he is right, this showerhead may not be right for him and an original would work better.
With enough pressure there is a more broad stream pattern, and it does seem to have even more pressure than most original heads built up off of that same amount of beginning pressure, but it does need to have enough of that beginning pressure to work right.
I love mine much better than the original but I am almost always connected with FHU so I'm not trying to conserve more water than this showerhead already does.

Very true and very good points!

A Pencil Jet is what we got too with our new Oxygenics head, so I installed a new high volume water pump in our rig. However, I didn't feel comfortable having to run the new shower head with the water valves on full power - with a new high volume pump too - just to get the water spray to seem/feel as widely dispersed as the old stock shower head did using the original low volume stock water pump and with the shower water valves only part way on like we did before. How could this new Oxygenics situation possibly be using less water? Short of "magic" ... very doubtful, IMHO.

We put the old stock shower head back on and keep the Oxygenics head the RV as an emergency spare shower head.

[JiminDenver]

That's it! It's not about the feel, it's how much water does it take to be usable. That said CW is on the other side of town and I haven't been over there to take it back yet. I'll probably end up trying a quarter turn ball valve and seeing if I can't at least cut down the dribble when off to a actual dribble.

[rekoj71]

The "Pencil Jet" is what happens when you don't have enough pressure on it. I understand the OP's opinion and if he is trying to take a shower under a dribble of water to save his water then he is right, this showerhead may not be right for him and an original would work better.
With enough pressure there is a more broad stream pattern, and it does seem to have even more pressure than most original heads built up off of that same amount of beginning pressure, but it does need to have enough of that beginning pressure to work right.
I love mine much better than the original but I am almost always connected with FHU so I'm not trying to conserve more water than this showerhead already does.

[Woodtroll]

I don't like mine either. I would rather have a broad stream pattern like the old faucet than a hard pencil jet like the Oxygenics.

[davidaf]

Had the same opinion when i first bought it. In fact did the same thing put the old head back on after a couple days. I didn't want to drive all the way back to CW and it bugged me that everybody liked it so much and I hated it. I've since put a 1/4 turn stop valve just below the head so i can slow it to a trickle or completely off when needed. Now it's perfect.

[Bird_Freak]

Love ours. Makes more noise and has more pressure but uses less water.

[Mello_Mike]

Count me as another very happy Oxgenics shower spa user.

[greenskeeper]

Wen just thru ours in the garbage............went back to the old style head with a water saver disc in it..a lot cheaper and I think just as good.....................

[wbwood]

We are happy with ours. We had a TT with about a 60 gallon grey tank. We didn't have teh Oxygenics in it. When we camped, we needed to dump the grey tank about every day and half. We didn't practice any water savings at all. We now have a MH with a 31 gallon grey water tank. One of the first things we did, was put in the oxygenics. We are able to go twice as long with half the size of the tank. we can actually go longer using water saving techniques (water on - get wet - water off- lather- water on- rinse- water off, etc).

Perhaps the one you got was defective. as you can tell, everyone that answered on here has stated they like theirs and it works well for them.

[JiminDenver]

I never ran the bucket test but it was pretty easy to see the original head would be usable at a lower flow than the Oxygenics because the Oxygenics couldn't be reduced enough to make the pump pulse like the stock head can. However I am considering getting a better valve that will cut the trickle when off down from a solid stream to a true trickle and accepting the slightly higher flow while in use.

[spacedoutbob]

I have absolutely no complaints about mine. It gives me a very decent shower.

Bob in Calif.

[Rangerman40]

I love my Oxygenics shower head. I dumped my stock one before our two week trip without hookups and it was amazing how long the water lasted. Not to mention the increase in pressure is amazing.

[SteveAE]

profdant139 wrote:
Jim, have you actually measured the gallons per minute it is using? Set it on the minimum acceptable flow and then let it run into a bucket for a minute.

I was going to suggest the same, but Dan beat me to it.

I also though the "dribble" feature used too much water. But when I compared the whole thing ("dribble" vs. water saving for the shower), I came out ahead. Not to mention the improved shower experience.

BTW. We keep a bucket underneath the shower "dribble" and/or us when showering and use that water to flush the toilet. Very little runs into the grey tank.

[Sandia_Man]

We had no problem with our stock shower head, but it would use a ton of water which isn't something we desire being predominately boondockers at heart. I installed a separate cutoff valve along with the Oxygenics showerhead about 7 years ago and for us it really delivers a strong stream with hot/cold valves turned to less than halfway. Just like any product results will vary but your problem appears to be before showerhead as flow should be sufficient even with stock showerhead.