Do a google search on "design a shower system" and words like that. I was really intimidated when we started designing our system, too! I found two or three sites that had great little descriptions and even "wizards" that helped you pick all the right components. Basically you will need one valve that controls the water temperature (that can be a thermostatic or pressure balanced. if you're doing a luxurious shower definitely get thermostatic!) and then you will want a volume control valve (on/off/how much water comes out) for each of the seperate things you have: showerhead, hadnshower, jets. With that configuration you could theoretically have all three on at once, and as studio460 noted, you better be sure you have enough water pressure and volume to handle that, and likely oversized supply lines as well. Another way to handle it is to decide what's likely to be on at the same time. For instance, if you thought you'd have the showerhead on and EITHER the jets or the handshower, you could have a volume control for the shower, and a volume control for the other two, plus a diverter to choose between those two. Keep in mind that MOST companies sell the valves and the "trim" (the actual handle you see) seperately. So for instance you will need the $250+ valve PLUS the ~$175 trim for EACH combination. It can add up really, really fast!

I have the shower riser at home already, so it will be available when they come to measure for the glass. I've decided to alter the design a little bit and have the riser come over the glass in an arc instead of through the glass, so that should make things a bit easier. I am also planning on having the glass fabricator make a (frosted) glass topper for the knee wall - unless you can recommend a better material for that purpose? I'll make sure they know to do the holes for the brackets in the shop, though! The glass people I've spoken with suggested a bracing the glass with a chrome bar extending from the long shower wall to the glass wall (the one with the showerhead) - I'll be sure to ask if any other supports are necessary. Thanks again for all your help with this!!!!!

The building code for 1 & 2 family dwellings is mostly prescriptive which means it actually sets minimum and maximum values and sizes structural members for a given location in the house. This is not intended to be used as a design guide but to place limits on what you might design yourself. Using the code as a design guide can result in deficiencies but that is not the fault of the code writers. The joist size tables do not consider long span bounce. The wall systems described are the ones most commonly used but the code does not intend to forbid the use of others. The waterproofing requirements are not extensive or adequate although the addition of the requirement to install materials according to the manufacturer's instructions was intended to fill that gap. Concrete foundations and slabs should be designed to ACI 332 since the IRC does not consider many common detailing problems. Placing pipes in an outside wall is a design problem that may be addressed by some codes but there is no reason to prohibit that condition. If there were to be a restriction it would have to be based on a map or list of locations similar to the requirements for wall vapor retarders. You can base your decision about the location of pipes on anecdotal information and other people's opinions or you can design the wall to avoid freezing of the pipe. If you choose the latter, you can use the formula normally used to locate the dew point in a wall in order to determine where the temperature would be 32 degrees or lower. Ignoring air infiltration for a moment, a water supply pipe 1 1/2" deep in a 2x4 stud wall and insulated with 3 1/2" of fiberglass insulation would probably freeze at about -10 degrees F. Ironically, removing 1 1/2" of the insulation on the warm side would lower the outside temperature needed to freeze the pipe to about -50 degrees but for fiberglass insulation air-infiltrations makes that prediction unreliable. So the design solution is to air seal the stud cavity and place R-10 or greater insulation on the cold side of the pipe. This is best done with spray foam (Icynene, etc.) and if the studs are 2x6's, the R value would be as much as R-14 which would put the temperature of the pipe at about 55 degrees when the outside air temperature is -30 degrees F. At that outside temperature the house temperature would need to drop below 45 degrees for the pipe to freeze. This design is roughly equivalent to a double 2x4 stud wall with no insulation in the interior wall and 3 1/2" foam or dense-pack cellulose insulation in the outer wall. The way it was done in my house back in 1903, was to put a "double wall" of wood lath and rough plaster at the middle of the full 2x4 stud cavity throughout the house and at the shower pipe the space behind the pipe was filled with vermiculite plaster. This pipe has never frozen but because of the risk of air infiltration I don't count on protection below -20 degrees. Remember that these calculations assume that the interior temperature is 68 degrees or higher, so if you set the thermostat at 55 degrees or the bathroom is under heated or you close the shower door you should adjust the calculation.

Just posting an update since we met with the designer last night. Turns out that he would have been collecting the following types of compensation under his "flat rate" model: - charging us a flat amount for design fees - marking up purchases 12% from his cost - marking up bids from contractors by some higher amount (which apparently varies by project) to cover his costs for overseeing the project, insurance, etc. He said he made the switch to hourly given the amount of research and shopping we were doing. He also asserted that he would have earned close to the same amount for the project on the original billing rate because of the markups. That is faulty logic and we told him so - our budget was our budget so marking up purchases would have meant we would have been buying less items and/or lower-quality items in order to stay within our budget. 12% of $17K is $2200 no matter what items you buy for it. And our labor costs are modest because the space was already roughed in, so he would have needed an ENORMOUS markup on the labor charges to get anywhere close to the amount that he was showing as payable based on his hourly rate. We also told him that had we known that we were being charged for every hour of work we would have used him differently. Until I asked, he never presented an interim summary of his hours or billings, or mentioned any concern for how we would stay within our budget given how much of his time he was spending. But he WAS aware of our budget and knew that we were going to some lengths to try to stick to it. To me this is the most important issue that makes his billed hours an unfair amount. A lot of our time in research was spent trying to find affordable alternatives for some of the ideas that he presented - we didn't want to change the design but we couldn't afford to do what he was suggesting. Logic says that he really wasn't being that mindful of the budget issues in presenting appropriate ideas in the first place. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this was a MAJOR disconnect on his part, which meant that a large number of his hours were billed without regard to what would be in our best interest. He conceded that he should have been much clearer about what terms he was thinking of changing and what the impact of that change would be on us. He is going to look at his time and use a couple of alternative approaches for how he could be compensated to come up with a number that will be his flat fee for the entire project, capped. Supposed to get Monday am. Said he really wants to oversee the completion of the work and understands that we will not explicitly compensate him for that. I am still concerned about what number he is going to propose but at least it will hopefully be in the neighborhood of a more fair amount.