Shower fittings

[MarkSmith]

Hi,

I am installing a shower which has 3/4" BSP female fittings for hot and cold inlets. It also comes with (optional) adapters to give me a 1/2" BSP male fittings instead.

The weight of the shower mixer is taken on the pipes and it will be mounted through a stud wall, so I need some sort of elbow, mounted on a wooden panel behind the wall.

I have 22mm hot and 15mm cold feeds. Cold feed could be converted to 22mm easily.

How do I do this? Finding the right combination of connectors seems very hard. It needs to take the weight, so there needs to be a wall elbow in there somewhere.

I can come up with a number of ways of doing it, but can't find any way where all the bits are readily available in the right sizes.

I can get bits from Screwfix and/or Wickes.

Thanks very much!
-Mark

 

[seco services]

Hi,

I am installing a shower which has 3/4" BSP female fittings for hot and cold inlets. It also comes with (optional) adapters to give me a 1/2" BSP male fittings instead.

take it your talking about dogleg fittings.

these fit in to a wall plate elbow.

or buy fit a purpose made stud wall bracket.

or a set of these and all the fixing is done after the tiling.

I have 22mm hot and 15mm cold feeds. Cold feed could be converted to 22mm easily.

why are they different sizes ? is the hot gravity cold mains ?

Finding the right combination of connectors seems very hard. It needs to take the weight, so there needs to be a wall elbow in there somewhere.

they are all available but it's a cass of knowing how to do it and what they are called.


what shower is it your fitting ie bar mixer etc ?

 

[MarkSmith]

Thanks Seco - very clear reply!

Yes, those are the exact things - dogleg fittings.
Yes, hot gravity, cold mains.
Yes, shower is a bar mixer I think. (At least, that term seems to describe it.)

That's basically what I thought - wall plate elbow. All the 1/2" ones take 15mm pipe, so I'll go from 22mm to 15mm to 1/2" to 3/4". I went to some effort (as per shower instructions) to get 22mm runs everywhere, so it seems like it would be nice to go direct into the shower at 22mm -> 3/4". Perhaps I'm just being fussy

That would require a 22mm / 3/4" wall plate elbow, and some sort of male/male coupler -- which I can't find.

I should have mentioned also that I will probably be using flexible pipe for the last bit of the connection, and I can get 22mm-3/4" flexi pipes. I was hoping I could attach one of those directly, but I don't think that's going to be possible.

What are those last things called, and where would I get one please? Do they provide mechanical support as well as the appropriate connections?

Thanks,
Mark

 

[seco services]

first thing is i don't advise gravity hot mains cold it's more likely going to give you agro in controlling temp.
read the instructions they useally advise balanced pressures.

have you got the make/model of the shower valve ?

 

[MarkSmith]

Shower is an Aqualisa Rush I believe.

It's temp balanced so I was hoping the different pressures would be OK. Do you still think otherwise?

I have the option of taking cold from the tank also (via 22mm, shared with cold feed to hot water tank). The reason I'm reluctant to do that is that it will drain the (quite small) cold tank faster.

I also have the option of running a new, separate, cold feed from the tank, and/or running hot and/or cold through a pump. (Pumping cold only if from tank of course.) Gf wants this in before Christmas, though, so I need to go with either gravity hot/mains cold, or sharing the 22mm from the tank, to get it going before then (even if it's not perfect).

Thanks,
Mark

 

[seco services]

Shower is an Aqualisa Rush I believe.

which i believe to be from BQ.
can't find nothing on it apart from it saying mains pressure.
you won't get that from your hot supply.

I have the option of taking cold from the tank also (via 22mm, shared with cold feed to hot water tank). The reason I'm reluctant to do that is that it will drain the (quite small) cold tank faster.

1 you shouldn't take a feed from the cylinder supply as that can then cause the cylinder to be starved.
2 if the cws in loft is only small then it may only be a 25 gal tank.
when the cws is used to supply cylinder and shower it should be upped to a 50 gal tank min.

I also have the option of running a new, separate, cold feed from the tank, and/or running hot and/or cold through a pump. (Pumping cold only if from tank of course.)

you'd be better running off a pump hot/cold giving you balanced pressures.
also if the loft is only just above shower then your water head height will only be about 0.1 bar and that performance from a shower will be worse than a watering can.

pumping the shower will also need the cws tank increased to 50 gal min
as a pump will empty that in a matter of mins.

 

[MarkSmith]

Thanks again Seco for the advice. All considerations about what to connect it to noted. Increasing the loft tank is a problem - the hatch is tiny. Not even the small tank that's in there now would fit through it, by a long stretch. Must have gone up before the roof spaces in the terrace were separated perhaps, or through a ceiling.

Anyway, next question...

I have the wall plate elbows exactly as shown, and dogleg fittings with conical covers, exactly as per your pic. Therefore two joints - elbow to dogleg, and dogleg to shower.

Do these seal on the threads, or against a washer at the back of the fittings?

It looks to me as if they seal against a washer - but if that's the case, one has no control over the position of the dogleg - one could be up, the other down, gaps all over the place. The threads are slightly serrated, though, which looks to me like an indication that the thread doesn't seal.

Also it means I need to arrange for exactly[\i] the right amount of thread to be showing through, so that the shower fittings tighten, and don't leave a bit of thread showing. That'll be hard.

Thanks,
-Enthusiastic but clueless of Southampton

 

[BingoBongo]

Ptfe the dogleg into the wall plate.make sure they are level and centred.the shower to dogleg will have washers.there will be a shroud to cover the threads not used.I would advise you to get a plumber in as it sound like your going to just give it a go.get a pump mate you won't regret it

 

[MarkSmith]

Thanks BingoBongo and thanks again Seco.

The plan was to get a plumber to do the lot, but nobody was available before Christmas (by when gf wanted the shower installed) so I am having to do it myself. Getting there, slowly

I've run a new 22mm cold feed from the tank, that all went quite well. Plumbing is all in place for the pump, although when I turned on the isolators to test the hot and cold feeds, the flow was incredible!! That would make an impressive shower (and drain the tank in about a minute). The shower head will be ~1.5m higher though, so I'm assuming we'll need the pump. I'll try it with and without anyway.

The roof tank is a piffling 15 gallons. Yep. Fifteen. 65 litres. That'll have to be enlarged but as I mentioned, a bigger one simply won't fit through the hole, so it's a bigger hole, which is another job...

Next question relates to the water flow rate filling the roof tank... but that's a different issue really so I'll do it on a different thread, if a search doesn't turn up the results.

Thanks all!
-Mark