Shower pipes in stud or brick wall ?

[LeeDowner]

I'm having a new bathroom and my girlfriends step-dad is helping me fit it all. He wants to build a stud wall to hide the hot and cold feeds for the mixer unit but I'd rather have those pipes in the existing brick wall to avoid the need for the stud wall. He says it can't be done because when the tiles are on the wall, there won't be enough depth to connect the pipes to the mixer... ? The wall is just brick and plaster, I don't understand why it can't be chiseled out to house the pipes.

His explanation doesn't make sense to me so I hope someone here can shed some light on it.

 

[calorific]

You need to dig out a fair old depth to get the pipework hidden and securely fixed in precisely the right place.. Given that you'll probably want to tile the area anyway, it makes sense to have studwork to screw aquapanel onto and create battens to affix your shower mixer easily..

 

[LeeDowner]

Did I mean false wall ? He wants to use battens to bring the wall in, thus creating space to hide the pipes.

 

[seco services]

You can put pipes in a solid wall, better than building a stud wall.
Just leave enough pipework exposed to join the mixer on to after tiling etc.

What type of shower are you fitting ?

 

[LeeDowner]

Won't the mixer just attach to the wall I have already ?

A stud wall won't look right, I don't mind chiseling deep into the brickwork to make space for the pipes. How would the pipes be fixed to the wall ? Pipe clips ?

 

[seco services]

Yes use pipe clips in the wall channels.
Yes the mixer will fit to wall after tiling.

 

[LeeDowner]

Seco services: It's not an electric shower, there's the mixer with a chrome pipe coming off the top of it to the shower head and there's another shower head that you can move around, I'm afraid I can't give you a better answer than that. First time I've got involved in anything like this.

What you said about putting the pipes in the brick wall and leaving enough to attach the mixer makes a lot more sense to me than this stud wall nonsense.

 

[seco services]

This is a install ready for a bar mixer to be fitted, pipes in a solid block wall.

 

[LeeDowner]

That's how I want mine to look, I don't know why he's wanting to build a stud wall, just sounds like more work and I'd be no better off in the end.

 

[seco services]

Just make sure you know or have your shower so you know distances etc of the pipework you need.

 

[LeeDowner]

I have the shower, not with me though. He's saying he needs room to connect the pipes to the mixer so a stud wall is needed for access from the side ?

Using your picture as an example, how would the mixer connect to those pipes ? The one I have needs a spanner so they're compression joints ?

 

[seco services]

Is it a bar mixer etc what type ?
Do you know the make/model you have got ?

What's he talking about, access is gained from the front on all showers.
He don't work in IT does he ? LOL.

 

[Iddy]

If a bar mixer, install your pipes as in Seco's pic, at 150mm centres. After tiling use a fixing kit like one of these:-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shower-ba...ional-thermostatic-shower-valve-/330761237772

Make sure you don't put the fixing screws through the pipes . . .