Block shower in basement - need to find mixing valve/riser assembly

[Brent Barkow]

As the subject line says, we have a block shower in the basement of the house we just bought. It works fine, but the shower head is positioned about 6 inches above my waist.

The hardware is an old fashioned mixing valve (separate hot and cold) with a riser coming out of the middle section. The riser arches over at the top, ending in the shower head. The hardware is not inside the wall, but is mounted onto the shower wall.

I've done quite a bit of looking and I can't find anything similar for sale. Any ideas on where I could find such an animal to replace what is there now?

I could possibly replace just the riser, but it looks like it is attached to the mixing valve by a method other than threads. I haven't taken it apart yet.

Any ideas welcome.

Thanks, Brent

[Speedy Jim]

How fussy does this need to be? Would you be satisfied with a riser of pipe terminating in an EL with a std shower arm?

Measure the OD of the riser as a first step and try to see if it is threaded in. If not threaded, you may be able to saw the top part off and connect to it with a "Dresser" compression coupling.

Jim

[Mongo Lloyd]

Yikes! That's gotta be hard on the gonads man!

[Charles Spitzer]

hand sprayer? you could mount it on a slide rail.

[John McGaw]

This antique-style hardware certainly still exists. Not cheap though. Take a look at:

and see if you like it. Of course if you are going to put in something this nice you may want to consider upgrading the "block" enclosure by tiling it or by some other means.

[Brent Barkow]

I've seen that stuff.....nice, but about 10 times what I want to spend. I don't need it to be real pretty, I just need it to be higher. I'm thinking that the hand shower on a rail might be the way to go. I've been working 12+ hours, 7 days/wk since the end of September and haven't had a chance to look around for something. Hopefully this is the last weekend I'll have to work for a while.

Thanks everybody for the suggestions. Gives me a place to start.

Brent