I am constructing a 60" X 42" custom shower. I made some extensive search on custom showering and got some idea what I want. Basically I want to have fixed shower head on the right shower wall, Slide Bar Mount hand held shower head either on back or right wall. I also want two body sprays on right wall and two on left wall. Now the question how to connect them together and what type of controls to add. I probably need a 2-way diverter between fixed and slide bar mount shower heads and thermostatic and volume control to regulate temperature for either of shower heads. What about body sprays? what usually regulates volume and temperature to them? Also what's the correct sequence of water flowing between thermostatic, volume control and diverter?
Wow, you are talking about a lot of water here! If I've counted correctly, you have six shower heads altogether. You'll need to be able to move at least 7.5 or 9 gallons per minute, depending on how you put things together. For rates like that, I'd suggest you use
3/4" supply pipes and a 3/4" thermostatic valve. (Grohe has the latter, to give one example.)
The usual setup is to have the hot and cold water supply go in to the thermostatic valve, then split up the mixed outflow among the various shower heads, putting a volume control valve on each branch. Each pair of body sprays is usually on a pressure-balancing loop, with a single volume control for the pair. So you could do your setup with a single (high-capacity) thermostatic valve and four volume control valves.
As you mention, you could also use a diverter to alternate between two of the heads. Frankly, I think this is a less useful setup; if you have the water for it, I'd go with the one in the previous paragraph. But if you prefer the diverter, it goes after the volume control valve. So here, you end up with one thermostatic valve, three volume control valves (two for the body sprays and one for the two shower heads), and one diverter.
You can also do more than one thermostatic valve, if you want shower heads at different temperatures, but I really think it is overkill - confusing, as well as expensive.
Again, to summarize, the usual setup is hot/cold water into the thermostatic valve, with the combined flow then branching out the to volume control valves, followed possibly by a diverter valve on some branch, and in any case on to the shower heads. And again, there are some issues with things like getting sufficient flow and balanced pressure out to the various heads, so it really would pay to consult with somebody with real expertise in this area.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.