I've seen a Pegler Mimo (£99.99, page 460, Screwfix catalogue) A Hansgrohe (£219 - including rail, handset, etc. - page 457, Screwfix) An un-named bar mixer valve (£59.99, page 457, Screwfix) A Triton Aire (various places including Argos and PlumbWorld where it's currently discounted by £19.80 to £69.97)
Anyone got any views on the relative merits of these? Or a better option? The prices vary hugely.
I also need a shower pump. Screwfix have a Salamander on page 458 at £79.99. Anyone got any experience of these?
I recently installed a new shower when I re did my bathroom. A plumber mate of mine said go for an Aqualisa Quartz. I followed his advice and must say its a fantastic bit of kit and dead easy to fit. The pump is part of the system.in my case a cold and hot feed go to a briefcase sized box in the loft. This is a combined pump mixer and a single pipe then feeds the shower. Simple to use , dead simple to install I bought mine on ebay new and treated myself to a remote on /off also from ebay. This is a low voltage controller that sits outside the shower.....push it and it flashes till the temp is reached in the shower.... you then enter the shower and the water is just right !!!!!!!! I love my shower.its quite amazing .. more expensive than some...... but for me worth every penny!
Do you have soft or hard water? The more expensive ones tend to be made of brass, which resists scaling more effectively. Cheaper ones will scale up within a year on hard water. Ensure that you fit a type that is both pressure balanced AND thermostatic.
Personally, I've had as good service from cheap ones as expensive ones. We are very pleased with my mum's Gainsborough Ambassador, whilst the much more expensive Mira 415 is not as popular. This is largely because the former one has separate flow and temperature controls. The Mira requires you to fiddle about every time you use it as it only has a combined control. It is also non-thermostatic.
Concealed valves look much better than surface mounted ones and give you more room in the cubicle, especially on a 760x760, where space is at a premium.
The main recommended pump is a Stuart Turner, such as a ShowerMate or a Monsoon if you are feeling flush. If I had a middle ranking budget, I'd get a good Stuart Turner pump and a cheap shower mixer, provided it was brass bodied if hard water is involved.
Had to move on this and ended up getting the Triton Aire at £74 inc carriage from Plumbworld.
We'll see if it's any good.
I'm installing a 1200 x 760 tray in a shower room so the depth of the bar shouldn't be an issue.
Not feeling flush at all! I went for the Salamander. I hadn't realised that Showermate was a decent brand as I had seen it in Focus!
A little concerned that the Salamander's fitting instructions say not to use more than 2M of 15mm pipe before the pump and there's more like 3.5M which I can't replace.
Bar types seem to be the first to go in hard water areas, but if you have soft, this isn't an issue. The main problem is that it is not pressure balancing. This means that it will be quite sensitive to taps being turned on/off elsewhere in the house. This is because the thermostatic control is usually quite slow. The pressure balancing control responds instantly to other taps being open/closed (in much less than a second). This problem can be considerably reduced by having separate pipe runs from the tank for the cold and from a separate flange in the hot water cylinder.
Don't worry about it, especially if you can place the pump near to the hot water cylinder.
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