"I could also just get a pull-down faucet for the sink and aim it at the tub to fill it." You could - but you won't like it. The most one of those will fill is 2.2 gallons a minute - some less that that. Divide your tub's capacity by that and you're looking at 20 minutes to fill +/- Not good. beekeeper - I have one of these and have placed more than half a dozen in projects over the past few years. What you get for your money is a machined brass body that mounts in the ceiling or wall and a plated trim piece. The body is a substantial piece of hardware and chrome,brass, nickel plating costs $$$ too. Whether that's all worth 500 + bucks, is up to you. Like davidro says, it doesn't matter what the delivery system is, this is just an opening for hot water to come out of, albeit one with a bit of engineering. GD & Spanish - the splashing is very much dependent on the mounting height of the unit AND the tub selected AND the location of the water column inside the tub. Mine hardly splashes at all. The ones I have seen that splash only do so for a minute or so until their is enough of a pool in the tub to counteract it. Flat bottom tubs with tall ceilings are going to splash more than one from 7' into a sloped contact point in the tub. Besides , we're talking water in a bathroom, generally tiled so what's the big deal ??? It's not like the amount of splash is the same as taking a shower and leaving the door open. 2. While you are correct in that "the water cools off much more than it would from just a regular tub filler", it's not as if it cools off enough for anyone without a thermometer to tell a difference, and a very sensitive one at that! Sure the air cools the water more from a stream falling from 8 feet than one falling from two feet. But bath water that is 100 + degrees is not going to cool down to 90 deg. in the xtra 1-2 seconds it takes it to fall from the ceiling- get real. Additionally , that filler produces a very dense column of water (laminar) that has little to no air in it, so one might argue it will be hotter and less prone to heat loss than a "regular" filler that introduces room temp air into it's stream - thus cooling it off on it's way to the tub. So don't worry Spanish -your tub will still be plenty hot with that filler if you choose it. IT'S A NON -ISSUE people. I've already alluded to the real issue for lower tub temps - FILL TIME. That's directly related to the delivery system ( valve). If your valve and accompanying filler will only deliver 5 gallons a minute it's going to take a while to fill an 80 gallon tub, and there will be some heat loss. Select a valve that delivers 20 gallons a minute and you can be soaking quicker that most people can undress. Here is a link that might be useful: laminar valve body - see page 2

The bathtub in my hall bath was "sinking" into the crawl space, and it was old and yucky anyway ... so we had it ripped out and replaced with an all-tile shower. 12x12 tiles on the walls, 2x2 tile on the floor, one shampoo niche, new sliding glass doors. Same size as the tub that was there before. New internal plumbing and plain shower head. No seat, no windows. We paid about $2600 ... that covered yanking out the old tub and surround and laying the tile. The handyman who did it gave me a list of what tile to buy, and I went and picked that myself -- and paid for it separately. That was another $250? Since we are prepping to sell in two years or so, I chose simple and neutral. If I'd chosen what I really like, my tile would've been more expensive. This was JUST the shower. He touched nothing else in the bathroom. My girls are thrilled with their new shower and don't miss the tub in the least. My regrets: I wish we'd had two niches put in -- the 12x12 niche holds a large pump-type bottle of shampoo and conditioner and a liquid soap ... but they also have body wash and shaving cream, and those things are sitting on the floor. And I wish I'd had them a hand-held fixture put in. That's easy enough to fix, we just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Not wanting to lead you fartur out on the ice but here's a couple of tips for dealing with tile hack jobs. Tile setters use nippers to cut curved openings and some don't do a neat job. I use a carbide grit hole saw to score tile so that a defined hole can be chipped in tile tile. Related to your mentioning "repair plate",here's how I handled a few similar to yours. Where matching tile wasn't availabe I retiled behind fixture with harmonizing color in a semetrical pattern. If fixture pretrude's far enough ,decorative tile or ceramic madalions can be adheared over existing tile with holes cut through both. In the latter case scratch glazed surface with wet-dry paper and use thinset with additive to get a bond. If you wind up useing a chrome plate,caulk only from 12 oclock to 9&3,leave lower edge of plate uncaulked in case stem leaks water can escape. Best of luck to you. If it helps,I to would rather "invite" people to work around my place but like you I continue doing it myself to assure it's not messed up.

So it sounds like you have an existing wall mount tub filler that you want to replace with your unused deck mount...correct? Totally apart from the issue of trying to figure out whether your new fixture can even work as a wall-mount, there’s the issue of what the existing plumbing is inside the wall. You may well have fixed spacing of the hot and cold supplies that won’t be compatible with your new one without tearing into the wall and doing re-plumbing. You need to: 1) post pictures of the existing plumbing you want to replace and the new plumbing, and 2) contact Herbeau directly to see if this can be made to work in a horizontal position. This will be much more complicated than you probably thought. One of the reasons is that a floor mount typically has a metal mounting plate that needs to be screwed into a solid surface, and it’s not clear what surface you have on the wall that would support the hardware.