4 or 5 Hole bath fillers - so expensive, suggestion?

aliasojo

Well I've changed my mind at the last minute again. :rolleyes:

I've come to the conclusion that I was trying to get one product to fulfill too many wants and have decided to separate the shower from the bath taps so that I can get exactly the shower options I want.

So I've scrapped the wall mounted tap idea and I'm now after a deck mounted tap set with a small hand held shower. I'm gobsmacked at how expensive they are....they're not even thermostatic. :eek: One Grohe set was over £900! For a tap!

I want good quality and something minimalist and streamlined looking. Any ideas? The shower set up I'm after is going to cost me so I really can't afford to shell out loads on taps. I need a matching basin one too (without a pop up mechanism).

Plumber is supposed to be back next week and I've not bought anything yet. :rolleyes: Small positive is that I can batter on with the plasterboarding etc now he's not needing to run pipework in the wall.

aliasojo

I originally wanted this....http://www.grohe.co.uk/m/25_7333/page/modules/pn/article.php?part=view&action=view&product=34277G202&offset=0&amount=15

But I wanted a fixed head shower and a moveable handshower. I couldn't have both if it was to serve as a bath filler too as it only diverts to two places.

As I want a double ended bath, I wanted the mixer centered. However if I did that, I would have problems with the bath screen, it wouldn't have been long enough to shield the water from the shower.

I also want to keep an electric shower as I have very unhappy and stressful memories of being with no hot water at all when our boiler was out of action. My OH and my son both work in industries where they get very dirty. I was conscious of how this would look though....don't really think hoses everywhere is very good.

So, my thoughts now are that if I just put bath taps on the bath (preferably deck mounted with a hand shower so it's easy for youngest to rinse hair in the bath) and put a thermostatic shower on the short end wall, I can get a verson that will supply water to head and hand sets AND I can have the electric shower on that wall too (but only the unit, no hose). I was thinking about the Aqualisa Quartz chrome version so it blends in a little better and then if the boiler conks out, I can use the hose from the thermostatic shower and link it to the electric.

Sounds very complicated. It seems to cover all bases though.

I have a headache.

R&C

It's a minefield isn't it? I don't understand half of the options and we don't want to bother our plumber just yet. We would like a concealed thermostatic shower with one of those modern looking plates with knobs on and a fixed modern looking shower head, that hopefully can swivel about a bit. Then a seperate bath rinser shower head thing that is 'deck mounted' so there are no hoses showing. Then there's the mixer bath taps aswell. I just don't know if all of it is possible together, it's all so confusing! Sorry I have no suggestions for you but i feel your pain!

aliasojo

Lol....tis always better to suffer in company.

My plumber is lovely but not much help in the suggestion department. Only thing he did say was ' I'll do anything you want me too, and I'm really not trying to put you off....but you might be better not putting a concealed shower on that wall'. :rotfl:

Apparently he'd had 2 callouts that week alone about concealed things leaking very slowly and no-one knew until the damp smell was too much to ignore.

andyhop

I would avoid hoses that sit in or under the bath tub

Shower hoses kink and twist and for reliabilty they pretty low

Bristan also do a few of these 4 tap bath mixers

Phirefly

OP I've replied to your PM, and have a look here (about halfway down the page) for some tap/shower inspiration.

aliasojo

andrew-b wrote: »

blimey..dont resurrect that thread again lol..i'm still not done (currently in the throes of building the toilet cabinet!)

Andy

I was getting embarrassed at the amount of questions I was asking so I thought I'd ask some on the fly, behind the scenes as it were. :rotfl:

aliasojo

It was Mayfair taps I was looking at as they were very similar to the more expensive ones and a whole lot cheaper....I was just querying with Phirefly what her thoughts were on the quality after she'd had them for a while.

(I'm reading now ....:))

aliasojo

Phirefly wrote: »

Heheh something like that - actually I was waiting for my chum to email me the before photos she took so I can illustrate the transformation in full. She's just sent me them so here it is, 2 weeks and 4k later....

I hope you don't mind me copying this post here, but you've just made up my mind for me about the tap set up (s :rolleyes:) I've been dithering about.

That is exactly what I want to to....central taps, hand shower in corner ( I assume this is joined to the tap pipework underneath and is still plenty long enough to pull out?)...and end shower with fixed head (although I want a moveable handset here too).

I love your tiles too. In fact, you've kinda just put me off doing what I was originally doing with the white furniture units. I love the clean simple tiled look, but I really need storage and lots of it. :undecided

What's that silver circular thing on the ceiling above the loo..is it an extractor?

aliasojo

I've just phoned Crosswater to query something and now I'm even more confused.

I thought that if I got a deck mounted 4 hole bath tap set, I could replace the supplied shower hand set with a Crosswater 'Follow Me' one. This gets plumbed into the waste so if there were drips left off wet or soapy hands, then the water would just drain away. Ideal, or so I thought.

I asked if this could be linked to a bath/shower mixer and was told no, it was for a thermostatic shower. What's the difference? Surely the fittings are the same?

Phirefly

aliasojo wrote: »

I hope you don't mind me copying this post here, but you've just made up my mind for me about the tap set up (s :rolleyes:) I've been dithering about.

That is exactly what I want to to....central taps, hand shower in corner ( I assume this is joined to the tap pipework underneath and is still plenty long enough to pull out?)...and end shower with fixed head (although I want a moveable handset here too).

I love your tiles too. In fact, you've kinda just put me off doing what I was originally doing with the white furniture units. I love the clean simple tiled look, but I really need storage and lots of it. :undecided

What's that silver circular thing on the ceiling above the loo..is it an extractor?

Yeah - the bath taps are just one set, with the shower head in the corner for the purposes of bathing Mrs. Dog. It pulls right out, but we have a separate shower on the wall for day-to-day use. Our plumber was cautious about the shower head as the hose is not enclosed in its own tube, so water could get in the hole and under the bath. We rarely use it though and when we do, I find water rarely gets in, and when its not in use the head is designed in such a way that water can't get in.

The tiles are micron 30x60 bg I got full-size samples from onlinetileshop.com, but they were nowhere near the price I got from EMC, which was £312.64 incl delivery. The tiles are still probably my favourite element of the whole scheme -especially around the window they just make it look a lot more expensive.

I'm not a fan of big boxed-in furniture units in bathrooms, I personally feel it all looks a bit old-hat. Our bathroom (whole house for that matter) is tiny so storage is essential, but the way our bathroom floor is uniterrupted from wall to wall gives a real feeling of space. We have a very big mirrored cabinet on the wall next to the door and I make sure the toiletries which don't fit in there are so beautiful you'd want them on display anyway, as are the sundries like the loo roll storage. Do you really need ALL that storage? Even with kids I'm sure you could be brutal and pare it right back.

Yes its an extractor above the loo, a super-cheap one from screwfix.