Shower temperature lag
Our house layout has the shower control valve on a different wall from the shower head. Our architect has warned against this, due to the lag time when you adjust the temperature, while our builder is not concerned. Our design adds about 5-6′ of extra horizontal pipe run, and about 3′ of vertical run.
Is this amount of lag a concern? If so, what are the best ways to mitigate this — I see lots of options available, but not sure what is the most practical?
With 1/2″ pipe between the control valve and shower head, I calculate a lag of somewhere around 3 seconds (depending on the shower flow rate and extra length of pipe to make the bends)
Thanks!
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Replies
I have done this many times with no complaints.
I recommend a thermostatic valve for this situation, to make sure that the bather needn't be making many adjustments during the shower.
You could also experiment with a rough mockup of this setup outdoors, with the valve you want to use, and see how it works for you.
If you spend the 2-3 hundred and upgrade to the thermostatic valve the pipe length almost becomes a non-issue as you almost never change the temperature setting after a week or two. Yes, the different users will have different preferences but at first, they will change the setting but after sometime you will find a compromise.
The thermostatic valve sounded like to much money to me when we were building and looking for ways to lower the cost. After living with the pressure balanced valve I upgraded at a much higher cost. My Delta used the same in wall kit but different trim to cover the new valve.
Note ½ inch pipe is way oversized for a single 2.5-gallon shower head but not if it is feeding 4 heads.
Walta
Thanks, everyone!