Re: Cheap shower mixer - but no fixing holes???

[Tim W]

GB wibbled on Thursday 29 October 2009 22:13

I bought a very cheap shower mixer from Toolstation - this one: >

I can't quite believe that it has no fixing holes to screw it to the wall. > Is that right? It's just supposed to hang off the pipework? > > Also, I'm not quite sure I understand how to connect it. The mixer has two > 'nuts' on the back that are a bit more than 13mm. There's then a sort of > cranked threaded bit that converts it down to a 13mm thread that looks > like it might take an olive and the nut from a 13mm compression fitting. > Is that right? > > I can see the point of the cranked bits, as it allows some leeway in case > the holes are not quite in the right place. > > So, what do you do exactly? You tighten all the fixings and I guess you > can check for leaks before burying the connections in the wall. You then > bury the fixings in the wall, but secured by what exactly, as the whole > shower is hanging off it?

Isn;t there a shower wall plate that can help with this sort of problem - it screws to the wall and locates the pipes. Sorry , glaching memory, can't pin it down.

As for the joints themselves, if they were made off with something like Rocol Threadseal XS

might help by giving some positive lock on the threads? Just ideas, don;t know for sure...

[Owain]

Squish it into the wall with car body filler.

Owain

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "GB" saying something like:

It's supposed to be built into the wall, ie be supported by the pipes and then plastered in. It ends up quite solidly fitted. If you're putting it into a stud wall, you simply make sure there are noggins in the right place and securely fasten the pipes to them. Tip: make up a dummy mixer bar from a piece of short pipe and elbows, of exactly the right size - use that to keep the pipework in place when mortaring in or tiling. After that, you can use a pipe-slice to cut it off and mount your shower bar.

[Mark BR]

> I can't quite believe that it has no fixing holes to screw it to the wall.

My advice? Take it back before you fit it. If your water pressure is reasonable the thermostatic end blows off in a few days - well both the ones I bought did.

[Mark BR]

First one the thermostat end pop out a bit and started dripping

the second one the end blew out and water water everywhere - luckily the shower door was shut!

Oh yes, tool station took them both back and looking at the price reduction they know exactly what it is like and are trying to off load them.