lizzy88 writes: "Does anyone use Moen fixtures? It's cheaper than the Grohe or Hansgrohe, but how's the quality?" Most makers make several lines of fixtures, with different levels of quality. In some cases, the lines are differentiated by brand name (the way that in the car business Lexus and Scion, both made by Toyota, are differentiated from Toyota and marketed through separate channels); for instance, Delta and Hansgrohe are part of the same corporate group, but are marketed to different customers. In the case of Moen, the Moen-branded units that you find in the blister packaging hanging from a shelf hook at Target are different from -- different in quality from -- the higher end Moen-branded units that you are likely to find only at a plumbing specialty store. (And probably are manufactured on a different continent.) When we remodeled our shower nearly nine years ago, we installed a Hansgrohe Axor Steel valve, volume control, mixer, and handle, and are very happy with that choice, but we saw no reason for our choice of mixer/handle to limit the choice of showerhead that attaches (in our case, via an articulated arm) to the pipe coming out of the wall above our heads. A showerhead does not look anything like a mixer handle, so a Hansgroher Axor Steel showerhead would not "match" the mixer handle any more than any other brushed steel/brushed nickel showerhead fixture would. It would take some pretty amazing peripheral vision to look at the mixer handle and the showerhead at the same time to determine if the exact color tone of the one matches the exact color tone of the other. Accordingly, we selected the showerhead with an eye more to function than to styling In the nearly nine years since we installed the Hansgrohe mixer, we have used three different showerheads in that shower: originally, an Australian "Down Under Wonder Shower" showerhead, then for a while a Hansgrohe handset showerhead, and now our present one, a Moen Velocity 6320bn -- the "bn" stands for brushed nickel which unfortunately commands a substantial price premium over the plain 6320 polished chrome model. There is no way that anyone could rationally argue that the styling of our Moen showerhead is less of a "match" for the styling of our Hansgrohe mixer than a Hansgrohe showerhead would be. The Moen Velocity is the best showerhead that we ever have used in any setting, home or away from home; it is simply wonderful. We have slightly lower than average water pressure in our shower, but the Velocity lives up to its moniker and gives us more "zip" in the water stream than we have achieved with either of the other two shower heads. I have provided a link to the Amazon listing below, but with a little shopping, you might be able to find a better price. One other point: Moen customer service is great; Moen stands behind its products Here is a link that might be useful: Moen 6320bn (Amazon listing)

Davidro1, Hehe, thanks, and I like your "style". The 80 gallon could be mostly fine but most setups have 4 body sprays not 8 and also with air bath, I feel we will need backup if we ever wabt to take bath & shower back to back. Plus kids baths etc. My gc who does plumbing may not be the ultimate expert in plumbing but is probably better then most avg. Plumbers and may not be up on everything buy hes pretty smart and accurate. He was good enoigj to do a maze of copper piping snd loops for the dtv with 8 body sprays, a shower head and hand held plus still room to do a manual controles roughin valve piped to another wall supply elbow (as a back up if dtv ever down) I like a lot of ppl on these forums started small and ended uo doing mlre then i intended. I woukd have been fine with 4 body sprays but couldnt cancel/return the 4 off wall sprays and really wabted the kohker water tiles because they are flush so also got 4 of those for the sides. The bathroom project has been a nightmare because of a bad middleman contractor who held money & matetials plus made mistakes aming other probkems and huge delays. I just want to get done and resume my life with my family. Its just if this is our forever house, my wife said if you are going to do it, donit right. I told her no to body sprays and now end up with 8. The kohler dtv was also not intended but I went with it to save ne from buying more valves and trims to control everything and i got good price on the valve and interface. Of course the space in wall was tight so couldnt use the more expensive pex so had to use copper which while cheaper tool my gc/plumber 4 days ti do paid by the hour. Anyway, he said his friend did a tankless, that its great and he can install no problem. He suggests having it feed just the master bath and will be plenty. I think my gas lines will be sufficient cus they areinly 5 yrs old and pretty thick yellow pvc gas lines. No idea where hed install it and how it would tie into just the bathroom but if it works out and the bathroom ever gets done and all wotks ok will be a miracle at this point. Gas lines are in basement under the side of the house where masterbathroom is and water softener (we brought with us from old house) and water shutoff is on the other side of the basement under side of the house my daughters bathroom is which is probably why hers has the best water pressure. So hopefully 1 medium/large tankless for just master bath will be enough. Still have to pick and find one. As for water pressure, ive been worried about that from the start. We dont need or neccesary love super high water pressure but as long as we have volume control (which dtv does and even the manual handheld i put on a supply elbiw with vc) then its good to have the power available. And bodysprays are useless if the water just trickles out (ive seen bad installs) I guess i just hoped the dtv would magically boost the water pressure. But I fear a pressure booster might be neccesary but I have no clue where ti get one or how its installed. I fear it would have already had to be put in with the pipong which now has tile backerboard sheet rock covering it all. Maybe the lressure booster can be put in basement with the tankless, both feeding just the master bath? I also have the major stress of getting a new tub last minute now that my order was canceled by the manufac believe it or not due to a most ridiculous and border line illegal debacle of which we wefe the victim of (see Jason hydrotherapy thread) And depending what tub we get, may need to put an access panel in the laundry room ceiling below tub to access a second and left sided blower. It never ends, the expense and the stress that is. Add to that a scammings middleman contractor who currently has our money and some materials but hasnt even used our money to get the rest of the tiles yet. Oh and because of him owing the gra ite fabricator money we had tonuse a different fabricator for the seconf half of the stone for the jov so its not going to match. Anyway, we'll keep this thread about Kohler dtv and the water heater and water pressure pump needs therein.

We looked at both and ultimately decided on the Moen. The deciding factors for us were that (#1) the Moen I/O Digital has a flow control and the Kohler does not (so you would need to buy flow control valve(s)) and (#2) the Moen has a larger display that we could easily read without our glasses. I liked the look of the Kohler and its flush mount. I don't recall which finishes it comes in but I know that we had to go with brushed nickel on the Moen instead of our first choice, polished nickel. I was lukewarm about getting the I/O Digital when my husband first mentioned it. I had envisioned our shower with lots of shiny levers and knobs to match our Sigma faucets so a single rather contemporary panel was an adjustment for me. I got over that the first time I used our new shower. I absolutely LOVE our I/O Digital! The remote control is a very big reason. I hit the button for the showerhead that I want as I'm about to get in and by the time I open the door, it's up to temperature. I love that I can see exactly what temperature it is set for and it blinks as you're starting to run low on hot water (while the temperature is still maintained at its setting.) We really couldn't be more pleased with our Moen I/O Digital and we've just ordered one for our guest bath reno.

We are considering the moen iodigital vertical shower/spa. i have only been able to find 2 posts about this. are there any other users or installers out there that can tell us about their experiences (good or bad) with this product?? thx