I have my delivery of the tyne bar mixer. It is surprisingly heavy. It does NOT have the cranked fittings, but a straight male 3/4" BSP (shower end) to male 1/2" BSP adapter. The bar fixes to the 3/4" BSP using a captive nut and washer. So the supplied male/male adapter connects to females on the wall and shower. In order to get the mounting perfectly spaced (150mm as usual) and strongly fitted, I intend to make a strong backplate to hold the fittings/pipes etc, that will itself be fixed to chased brickwork. Triton have just started making a similer plate, but both pipes must enter from below so not suitable (item not on their website yet).
What material to use as the backplate ? (wet plaster on it etc)
The whole lot will be buried in plaster. (The cold feed wrapped in tape, the hot feed in a 20mm plastic conduit to allow for expansion). Also, the hot pipe will enter from below, the cold pipe maybe from a diagonal (same chase for both pipes). I am not an expert in metalwork. What material (galv steel etc) ? should I use ? I may end up with brass outside tap elbows bolted to the plate, but fixing those direct to the brick will never get the alignment accurate enough without packing out / hassle etc.
A further issue. I may chuck the BSP adapters. They look rather long to my eye. If I do, what is the most standard fitting to have in the wall, so that in the future other brands of mixers may be fitted ? For my shower, a male 3/4" BSP sticking out of the wall would allow the shower to bolt straight on, but this may not be a good idea for re-use.
Sorry for lots of questions in one post. TIA Simon.