Thermostatic Shower Valve Recommendations
remodelron
13 years ago
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cat_mom
13 years agoDavid
13 years agoRelated Discussions
Ouch! A Plumbing Question....
Comments (26)I think what you have is a very basic plumbing layout. As the water comes into the house, it's sent in two directions, one hot and one cold. Simple. Then you have different flow rates at different fixtures, for instance, the kitchen sink has a slower flow rate, which is typical (often around 2.5 gpm) and a shower can be typically around 4gpm. There seems to be enough pressure coming from the city water to keep your cold water pressure constant. But it seems that there is some pressure drop across the hot supply- which I don't think is that unusual. That is your rate limiting step- your hot water supply. So each valve simply translates this balance, or unbalance, each time you use more than one fixture. Have you ever been lightheaded when you stand up too quickly? Well, it's kind of the same; your body has to close off all the open "faucets" to your lower extremities in order to supply more pressure and blood to your head when you change position. This is very much how newer balance valves correct this change in supply pressure to your fixture. When there is a quick change in pressure because you have opened up another outflow of water elsewhere, the valve is meant to keep the balance of the hot and cold water the same so you don't get scaled or frozen. I don't know exactly how the valve does that.... but it does work well. That is my understanding of your situation. You may want to post over in plumbing, they are very helpful over there, in order to verify all this. I have gotten some really great advice from that gang with some non-novice stuff. My non-professional DIY understanding, hopefully put into understandable terms. Welcome to stand corrected :-)...See MorePressure Balance Valve or Thermostatic Valve for New Shower?
Comments (1)Just finished building my somewhat modest master bath addtion (I did all the plumbing myself). My experience deals with a stand up shower in this particular instance. After some resarch, I decided that I did not need to spend north of $2k on Kohler thermo valve, and I did not need 15+ GPM with 3/4" inlets. By the time I added the body sprays and a couple of shower heads i was in for over $3k which was way over budget. I ended up doing a Moen Vertical Spa. IIRC, I think it was about $1,300 with two shower heads, 4 body sprays, a handheld shower, 5 position diverter valve, and the thermo mixing valve. I just fired it up last week and am very happy with the whole set up. Moen does a nice job, they have some great info on their vertical spa and thermo valves on the moen.com website. It took me a full day to pipe, but I used long radius elbows and took my time to ensure good flow. Having both the pressure balanced and a thermo valve, I prefer the thermo valve and being able to adjust the flow volume. Plus I think it looks better. I ordered it online from faucet.com, no tax + free shipping....plus they price match. If you google the part number and you find a lower price and email it to the price match department and they re-quote the product. Customer service was superb and ended up ordering my sinks, faucets, med. cabinets, and towel/TP holders from them. Again, with no tax and free shipping the net result (to me) was a great deal. I go out of my way to keep from purchasing at the big box - but that might be my personal grudge, but they dont have anything "good" in shower valves in stock any ways, so why bother ordering it from them? Hope that helps....See MoreStrom Thermostatic Control Valve & Volume Controls for Shower
Comments (8)The differences are: One volume control plus diverter (depending on which diverter chosen) is you can operate any combination of the three fixtures independently or any combination of any two together, but at the same volume as the control is set to. Advantage, is lower price of material, less rough in work, less openings in shower wall. Disadvantage, more rough in work, less overall control. Having three volume controls will allow each fixture to be controlled independently so you can have all three fixtures on at once and be controlled at any volume setting independent of each other. Advantage, better overall control. Disadvantage, higher price due to one more fixture needed and more rough in work, one more opening in shower wall. In the end, more openings in shower wall can be dealt with easily so it's just a matter of cosmetics. Also the rough in work isn't much more when adding another fixture, therefore it's a minor disadvantage....See MoreBest thermostatic shower valves?
Comments (4)"they seem to have almost no trim options that meet our state's water requirements" If you're talking about California's maximum flow rate, I believe that applies to the shower head or hand shower, not the valve. Build offers a number of Hansgrohe thermostatic trims though pressure balanced trims and valves are cheaper....See Morepharaoh
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