Shower valve recommendations?

I need to replace the valve on our main shower shortly (the one currently there is part of a somewhat redundant[1] Aqulisa power shower)

Has anyone fitted one recently that they rate (or don't like)?

Can be either surface of flush mount, although if surface preferably not sticking out too far - since I am fed up bumping into the current one! So a Bar Mixer might be good...

I am in two minds with showers whether its worth going for a posh one at five times the price, or a cheap easy to swap bar mixer that can be replaced for the cost of parts on a high end one...

Pressure available is 3.5 bar, flow rate in the fire hose category.

[1] It came with the house, and never actually worked as a power shower

- its motor appears to be stalled. Since I went mains pressure unvented hot water last year, all it does it take up more space than required, and its also beginning to drip when off)

Reply to
John Rumm
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John, this may be of interest as it is available surface or flush

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We had one fitted last year and it has been very good. The temperature can be tweaked by quite small increments and it copes well with fluctuations in pressure.

Reply to
rbel

The 'Select' range are notably cheaper than the 'Excel' range, I've had a surface mount and a flush fit 'Excel' and have been happy with them, is there any fundamental difference?

Reply to
Andy Burns

Yep, I was in exactly the same position a couple of years back when I refurbed our shower. In the end I went for the reasonably high-end flush- fitting Mira

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2129-22888) to replace our bar mixer, on the basis that Mira seem to stock spares forever, and that we'd benefit from the better performance of the more upmarket valve anyway. And hopefully benefit from less downtime due to failures of another bar mixer. Also looks much nicer IMHO.

Am very pleased with it.

Reply to
Lobster

Avoid Crosswater, we had one fitted last year, the build quality isn't so good, the cartridge broke within the first week and I just don't feel it was worth the money.

Reply to
gremlin_95

Exactly :-)

If your HW supply fluctuates significantly during showering (e.g. from other people drawing water off elsewhere) then a Mira or Aqualisa with a bi-metal strip element may give better control of temperature than the wax element in a typical bar type. But a replacement cartridge will cost over 100 notes whereas you can get about 3 bar-type mixers for that on fleabay.

Only bar-type to avoid is the "Linear" (I think) brand SELCO do: I've had to replace most of the ones I've fitted over the lest few years :-(

Reply to
YAPH

As far as I am aware its not really affected by other users (although the only shower at the mo is an Aquilisa - so it might be masking the effect)

Anyone tried the "Architeckt" brand from plubworld? This one looks like it might be ok for this application - large enough plate to cover any damage to the existing tiles (when I remove the power shower), and looks like it should be easy to get a grip on with soapy hands etc:

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Reply to
John Rumm

After hearing your own and other experiences here, I wont be fitting anything but bar mixers in my own home, the simple swap replacement far outweighs any potential cosmetic advantages IMV.

Reply to
fred

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