Thermastatic vs. Pressure Balanced

[raeiken]

I am installing a new shower in my master bath. It will have several shower heads ( Regular, Handheld, Overhead, and body sprays ). I have been reading about mixing valves, everything I read says to go with thermastatic 3/4" valves. I am just curious about the difference and benefits of the different valves, pressure balanced are certainly much cheaper. While max flow is a consideration, I wopuld not want to run all of the shower heads at once, I would just like to used different ones at different times.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

-Ron

[hj]

All thermostatic valves are pressure balanced, but not all pressure balanced valves are thermostatic. Pressure balancing tries to maintain the original proportions of hot and cold water by balancing any pressure fluctuations. Thermostatic maintains temperature by controlling the mix of hot and cold water. Your system does not suggest either one as a preferred choice. It depends on what your desires are as far as a stable water temperature, balanced against the much higher cost of a thermostatic valve plus the fact that not all have an on/off function so you have to add a volume control valve to them.

[jadnashua]

I really like the thermostatic controlled valve I installed. Set the temperature once, and leave it, season to season, first shower of the day to last (until there is no hot water left!).

[raeiken]

Currently I haven't plumbed any of the interior of the shower. I have 3/4 copper supply lines at 60 psi. From the main supply, there are two seperate sets of hot/cold pipes coming into the shower on adjacent walls. If I use a seperate mixing valve on each wall will I run into balance problems when running one shower head off of each valve simultaneously?

[hj]

That would be a function of the piping in the rest of the house. If the rest of the piping is adequate then you should have no problems with the shower.