Whether you’re too tall or too short for your shower head, we’ll show you 5 ways you can easily adjust the height of your shower head without hiring a plumber.
1) Adjustable Shower Arm
The easiest and most affordable way to raise the height of your shower head is with an adjustable shower arm. This type of shower arm attaches to your existing shower arm pipe, acting as an extension, and then you can attach your existing shower head. (Or add a really nice rain shower head for that true rainfall experience!)
From there, you can elevate or even lower the height of your shower head by loosening up the wing-nut fittings and retightening them in your ideal position.
All you need for this installation is an adjustable wrench or pair of pliers, as everything else will come included with the shower arm extension. Even if you’re inexperienced with plumbing, this install should be a breeze and will likely only take you 15 minutes to do!
2) Swivel Ball Adapter
We recently added this part to this article because we found readers with shower head height issues actually have issues with the adjustability in their shower head.
What we also found is that even though some of the other parts we recommend in this article work great at increasing shower head height, like the S-style shower arm, it presents an issue for shorter members in the household getting the shower sprayer to angle low enough to get decent coverage.
Here’s a question, does your shower head spray the back of your shower wall instead of you? That’s very likely due to face that the pivot ball in your shower head does not angle far enough downward.
The solution is very simple, a swivel ball adapter. It simply attaches between your shower arm pipe and shower head and increases the adjustability of your shower head.
It actually will lower your shower head height about an inch, but it will give you much more flexibility with positioning your shower head.
3) S Shower Arm
The biggest benefit of this type of shower arm is its durability. The drawback is you have to remove your existing shower arm pipe from the wall. While replacing your shower arm isn’t technical, it takes a bit more force to loosen it up from the wall and might turn some people away from this option.
Although this is one of the sturdiest options, because it is fixed to your wall, it won’t give you the most flexibility like the other options. However, it will give you a healthy balance of height and durability.
4) Wall Mounted Hand Held Shower Holder
What, did you think we would leave the all important hand held shower head off the list? Not so fast. Whether you have a handheld showerhead or want to add one, we have just the thing to make sure you can raise the height of your shower head.
One thing to keep in mind is that a hand held shower head will already raise the height of your shower head, simply because of the handle part which extends about 3-5 inches on most handshowers. So, if you’re considering a handshower as a replacement shower head, you’re on the right track.
For additional height out of your hand held showerhead, you’ll want to get yourself a wall mount shower holder. These pieces can be mounted anywhere you want on your shower wall and are typically installed either with screws or with an extra-strong adhesive.
The pros and cons are obvious. Drilling will provide a more sturdy mount while being a little bit more technical, while the adhesive will be less sturdy but is as easy as peeling and sticking it on the wall.
The Delta Wall Mount Holder we recommend below can be mounted with screws or adhesive.
5) Shower Slide Bar
Last but not least, the most complex but most high-end touch – the shower slide bar. The slide bar mounts to your wall and then the hand held shower head attaches to the holder on the slide bar. You can easily raise the height of the shower head up or down by sliding the holder mount up or down the track of the slide bar pole.
The slide bar we’ve recommended below mounts to your wall using screws and can be adjusted up or down by over 25 inches! So, you’ll not only have a very sturdy product, but you’ll have a lot of flexibility to position the shower head at its perfect height.
You can use your existing detachable shower head with hose or you can buy these new hand shower and shower hose to complete this set.
*BONUS* Matches Made in Heaven
Look, if you’re going to go through the work of adding one of these components to raise your shower head height, you should at least take the time to consider upgrading your shower head too!
After all, you’ll already be removing the old shower head so it’s not going to take more time to do so.
To make your decision a little less complicated, here are some of our top selling packages to raise your shower head height.
Option 1: Adjustable Shower Arm with Shower Head Package
Adjustable shower arms work perfectly with rain shower heads. Even if you don’t need to raise the height, you can use the shower arm extension to have the shower head reach overhead so you can stand under the rainfall.
Option 2: Shower Head with Slide Bar Package
Most slide bars only come with the slide bar and holder. Instead of buying an entire shower head set, that comes with a useless shower arm mount, it’s more cost effective to buy the handshower and shower hose separately. Here’s the complete set to your slide bar package.
