lower shower valve

[shardy]

hi all
I wondered if anybody could advise on how much work is involved in lowering the outlet pipes for the shower valve in the attached picture?
I would've thought it means detaching the plywood, unscrewing the plate and re-attaching the plate lower down and screwing new holes in to the ply and filling the old holes.
Or can the old holes in the ply not be filled? Which would mean new ply.
I think our plumber will refuse to do it or charge many hundreds of pounds.
The outlet pipes are installed too high, without asking us, almost chest height. We want a shower with a diverter valve and hose plus a riser, but can only find one model that fits into the 80 cm space between pipes and ceiling. Unfortunately its a very cheap shower and I've found that cheap shower valves soon leak.
The plumber installed all the bathroom pipes when the room was in skeleton condition, just joists, no boards or insulation etc. When we asked to move the position of shower pipes a few centimetres he groaned and said it was not possible or he could, but would mean ripping out everything starting again so would have to charge us an extra 2 days labour. Plus all materials would have to be scrapped and paid for. He was only 3 hours into the job at the time of asking so not sure how an amendment to a small part of 3 hours work equals extra 2 days labour plus scrapping materials.
It infuriates us that we were not consulted on the position of anything and tiny changes cost a fortune

 

[Dan Robinson]

Have you taken into account the height of the tray in judging "chest height"?

 

[shardy]

hi Dan, yes the shower tray is 35mm high and the waste under the floor so the valves will be at or just under chest height when in use depending on height of user. If they were at approximately belly button height or a bit lower it would give us a wide range of products to choose from. I might ask somebody else to amend it

 

[Madrab]

If he's used standard fittings then lowering that pipework should not be any major headache. Certainly shouldn't be 2 days unless he's done something complicated behind that sheet. Usually those tails would be fitted around 1-1.2m from tray level. Most effort involved would be removing the plywood. As it's being covered then no need to fill the holes that are left.

 

[muggles]

Can't see moving that being more than half a day's work, although it's impossible to be certain without being able to see what's behind the panel

 

[Dan Robinson]

Could even shorten the ply so the holes are in the right spot then use the offcut to fill the hole up top.

Simples.

 

[shardy]

thanks for replies folks, that's a big help. I've attached a picture taken before it was insulated and boarded. sorry its a bit blurred. I think the shower plate was attached here as there was a convenient noggin.
the holes are 1.25m above floor level so definitely a bit too high.
good idea to use the off cuts of new holes to fill old holes in ply. if the tiles or grout ever leak it will be good to keep those holes plugged.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I was being cleverer than that..... If he has to lop a foot off the bottom, he can still use the old holes, then use the newly cut bit of ply to make up the gap up by the ceiling.

 

[shardy]

oh I see, haha that sounds even better thanks Dan

 

[Dan Robinson]

If that took him more than 2 hours I'd be worried.