Designing A Custom Shower - Reality Check Needed

Hello All

**Lurker coming out here**

I'm in the process of designing a custom shower. The physical dimensions of the shower are large enough to provide room for two people. At one end of the shower, I intend to have 3 or 4 body sprays (in a balanced loop) 1 hand shower and an overhead "sunflower" style shower head. At the opposite end of the shower, a single "traditional" shower head will be located.

At the "spa" end of the shower, I want to be able to control the various outlets in the following fashion:

1. Sunflower head only
2. Hand shower only
3. Sunflower and body spray loop
4. Hand shower and body spray loop

The shower fixture product vendor that I'm considering produces a 4 way diverter valve that I can use as the control for this sort of plumbing logic. What I would have to do, however, would be to construct a series of "tees" with "check" valves to complete the puzzle. There is a thermostatic mixer and volume control valve at the supply end of this construction.

So, my questions are.... Has anyone here done something like this and if so, do you have any advice? Am I nuts even contemplating something like this?

Thanks in advance for any and all information.

Gary

shower

Similar installations are done all the time, but I think you would be the first one to ever need check valves. And if you do install check valves how are you going to provide service access for when they stop working and need replacement?

Plumbing Schematic

Thanks for the input HJ. Let's assume that I won't have any trouble with access to the check valves if/when replacement becomes necessary. The proposed schematic looks like:



Logic dictates that I'd need check valves in the locations identified. Is this, in anyones opinion, a sound configuration or should I scrap this diverter scheme and go with discrete on off valves?

Thanks for you thoughts.

Gary

the 4-way diverter w/check valves doesn't make sense. what if, god forbid, you decide one day that you'd like to get a little crazy and use the hand shower, sunflower, and body sprays all at the same time?
or just the handshower and sunflower?
or just the body sprays?
that would be a sad day indeed.

barrybpdx said:

the 4-way diverter w/check valves doesn't make sense.

Click to expand...

What doesn't make sense about it? I think the diagram makes perfect sense. You can choose a few different combinations of the different sprays. The check valves allow the water to go in one direction only therefore isolating the fixture(s) connected to it.

barrybpdx said:

what if, god forbid, you decide one day that you'd like to get a little crazy and use the hand shower, sunflower, and body sprays all at the same time?

Click to expand...

Then chances are you wouldn't have enough water and you'd get a trickle out of each fixturee "all at the same time."


I agree that if one of the check valves DO fail, it might not be easy to get in to replace them. Another option would be to have a seperat control for each head, although this might lead to so many controls that it rivals programming the VCR. No reason why it shouldn't work as long as there is enough water to power two fixtures at once.

Jason

by "doesn't make sense" i didn't mean in the technical sense. of course his proposed design is workable. i'm glad that you too can understand it. thanks for explaining for me what a check valve is.

your remark about water just trickling out "all at the same time" doesn't apply in light of the design not allowing just the body sprays, or the sunflower+hand shower.

and don't forget that this is already a 2-person shower stall. gary must figure he's got lots o' water.

and it has already occurred to gary to have a separat[sic] control for each fixture. try looking up 'discrete' in the dictionary.

gary was soliciting opinions on whether his design seemed like a good idea. i was merely pointing out its inflexibility.

Yup! I got water pressure to burn !

Ok! I'm still debating this design (arguing with yerself is great fun). I've used PVC diverters with in-ground sprinkler systems but I've never used bronze diverters in an indoor plumbing application. If I go ahead with this, I'm likely to use "swing" type check valves mounted horizontally.

What's it like trying to sweat valves like this? I've done my fair share of soldering copper pipe but I've never had to sweat a valve and I'd be worried about over heating it. Considering that it's already been mentioned that these valves are prone to wear, should I use FIPS style units (can't seem to find any MIPS style units) and just worry about soldering threaded unions on the copper tee's? Certainly would make replacement easier I guess.

Jeepers.... the more the I think about this, the more complex it gets. The connections between the copper tee's and the check valves appears to require some more research.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice and opinion.

Gary

Take apart and remove all of the plastic parts and you should be able to sweat copper to the valves. I think thats easier than trying to tighten a threaded fitting once you have your whole contraption put together.

good luck getting it to all fit nicely!

Jason