Are shower water problems caused by old pipes?

bathroom nightmare

Thanks. May I ask what type of shower head you have? Is the "o" ring restrictor the same as the low flow restrictor? The contractor said that it wasn't a good idea to take the low flow filter out of the shower head b/c the sediment would then clog inside the small holes in the shower head. I'd like to find a shower head where I wouldn't have to worry about clogging the holes if you take the low flow restrictor out.

Hopefully I won't have to worry about changing my new shower, but at least this gives me another possiblity than repipng, if the valve keeps on gettng clogged. Thank you for your response! I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.

jpplumber

The shower head is not anything special but if you remove it and look inside where the female part connects to the pipe there is either an "o" ring pressed into a piece of plastic that can be picked out with a needle or some other type of restrictor, possibly a rubber piece with maybe three holes in it that can be picked out. I put a round mesh screen in mine to catch any foreign matter.
Delta is a good brand of faucet but the cartridge can restrict flow a bit if it is of the type that is pressure balanced, most or the newer type are, if you saw him remove the cartridge (or if you have the paperwork that came with the faucet there will be a picture) it is somewhat barrel shaped with two small legs that the hot and cold water flow through and has an adjustment to limit the amount of hot water. If this is what you have then any larger debris it will be plugged up in those little legs before it ever gets to your shower head.
At any rate, removing the restrictors from you shower head will give you more pressure and you can always remove the shower head to check it for debris if your flow is reduced, but it will more then likely plug the cartridge first.

bathroom nightmare

Thank you everyone for responding. Turns out that the pipes are ok for now, and changing the valve brought back the water pressure. Must have either been defective originally, or the fact that the contractor didn't blast out the rocks before turning the water on got debris stuck in there. Either way, I'm too relieved to complain. Thanks!