Installed A Thermostatic Shower Mixer Valve
I’ve always hated the faucet in our Lance 1121 shower. It was the typical cheepo plastic two handle model that looks like a sink faucet with a connector for a shower hose. It was difficult to adjust the temperature, so you’d waste water fiddling with the knobs.
I bought one of these several months ago on Amazon, and finally had time to install it just recently.
Thermostatic Shower Valve
This isn’t a recommendation for this particular valve necessarily, unless it will work for you. But it is a strong recommendation for this TYPE of shower mixer. It resolved all of the issues I was having with my old faucet. As I said, the temperature was difficult to set, it tended to change as the faucet itself heated up, it wasted water, and worst of all, once you got the temperature set right, if you turned the flow off at the shower head, you were blasted with freezing water when you turned it back on.
Because of space requirements, I needed a mixer valve that wasn’t any wider than the old faucet. I also needed the hot and cold inlet spacing to be no wider than the old faucet. It would actually be helpful if the inlets were closer together, to get the hot supply connector away from a vent pipe behind the shower that was partially blocking it. Most of the thermostatic mixer valves I was looking at have the valve handles pointing to the sides, rather than straight at you, so they tended to be a lot wider, and they had wider spaced inlets.
The one I bought is a much more compact design, the price was attractive, and the inlet centers are only about 2.5” apart. It was a little unique in that it needs the supply lines brought through the wall into the shower. I used the original hole in the shower wall for the cold side, and cut a new hole for the hot side. That moved the hot side supply line away from the vent pipe, and kept the flow control handle on the left side of the valve from being too close to the corner. I made a cover plate out of some FRP I had lying around to tighten up the holes around the pipes coming through the shower wall, and cover up the old hot side hole. I made the 1/2” brass piping under the mixer valve from a 90 degree elbow and a 2” long nipple.
I had to put a piece of plywood on the backside of the shower wall to give me something other than the fiberglass to mount the round support flange to. The plywood is stuck to the fiberglass with FRP adhesive.
I accessed the backside of the shower through the hole where the outside shower used to be. We’ve never used the outside shower for anything, and since this is the third time I’ve had to remove it, I’m not going to reinstall it. I’ll put the door back on, but the shower and it’s associated plumbing is going in the trash bin.
The only way I know to test out a new shower valve is take a shower, so I’ve already tested it out in my garage a few times, and it works great! The mixer valve reacts very quickly to temperature. Once the hot water reaches the valve, the temperature is maintained automatically by the setting of the right knob. To prevent scalding, the red button on that knob must be depressed in order to set the temperature any higher than 38 C (100 F). When the flow is turned off at the shower head, you no longer get a blast of freezing water when you turn it back on.
This was well worth the time, $$, and effort to do. I highly recommend it!
:):)
I bought one of these several months ago on Amazon, and finally had time to install it just recently.
Thermostatic Shower Valve
This isn’t a recommendation for this particular valve necessarily, unless it will work for you. But it is a strong recommendation for this TYPE of shower mixer. It resolved all of the issues I was having with my old faucet. As I said, the temperature was difficult to set, it tended to change as the faucet itself heated up, it wasted water, and worst of all, once you got the temperature set right, if you turned the flow off at the shower head, you were blasted with freezing water when you turned it back on.
Because of space requirements, I needed a mixer valve that wasn’t any wider than the old faucet. I also needed the hot and cold inlet spacing to be no wider than the old faucet. It would actually be helpful if the inlets were closer together, to get the hot supply connector away from a vent pipe behind the shower that was partially blocking it. Most of the thermostatic mixer valves I was looking at have the valve handles pointing to the sides, rather than straight at you, so they tended to be a lot wider, and they had wider spaced inlets.
The one I bought is a much more compact design, the price was attractive, and the inlet centers are only about 2.5” apart. It was a little unique in that it needs the supply lines brought through the wall into the shower. I used the original hole in the shower wall for the cold side, and cut a new hole for the hot side. That moved the hot side supply line away from the vent pipe, and kept the flow control handle on the left side of the valve from being too close to the corner. I made a cover plate out of some FRP I had lying around to tighten up the holes around the pipes coming through the shower wall, and cover up the old hot side hole. I made the 1/2” brass piping under the mixer valve from a 90 degree elbow and a 2” long nipple.
I had to put a piece of plywood on the backside of the shower wall to give me something other than the fiberglass to mount the round support flange to. The plywood is stuck to the fiberglass with FRP adhesive.
I accessed the backside of the shower through the hole where the outside shower used to be. We’ve never used the outside shower for anything, and since this is the third time I’ve had to remove it, I’m not going to reinstall it. I’ll put the door back on, but the shower and it’s associated plumbing is going in the trash bin.
The only way I know to test out a new shower valve is take a shower, so I’ve already tested it out in my garage a few times, and it works great! The mixer valve reacts very quickly to temperature. Once the hot water reaches the valve, the temperature is maintained automatically by the setting of the right knob. To prevent scalding, the red button on that knob must be depressed in order to set the temperature any higher than 38 C (100 F). When the flow is turned off at the shower head, you no longer get a blast of freezing water when you turn it back on.
This was well worth the time, $$, and effort to do. I highly recommend it!
:):)
