Home DIY

Or going by this forum's standard: rebuild the window sill to include custom window boxes.

Alright kids. Here's a weird one.

We have a freestanding bath. I want a shower in there. Because there's a window to the front of the bath just above the taps, I can't install a shower there, so I think I need to install one on the ceiling.

I already have a shower pipe coming out of the taps so it SHOULD just be a question of:

• installing a shower head on the ceiling
  
• feeding the shower pipe up from the taps and screwing it in
  
  

...but all the ceiling shower heads I've found are enclosed - i.e. the pipe has to go through the wall, not plug in on the outside. Am I missing something super obvious?

This is what it looks like if that makes any diff

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Just put a long hose on there and a shower head holder on the wall. Please, just do that and then post pictures of the aftermath. :)

There are proper ways to do a shower over a freestanding bath that includes a shower curtain but by the time you've done it your bathroom will look like a 19th century whores boudoir and unless it's a wet room you will constantly have problems with water on the floor.

Well exactly. The water needs to come from the ceiling so that it'll be falling inside the shower curtain. If I tried putting a shower head holder on the wall, not only would that suck, but it'd be coming in from outside the shower curtain, so I'd have water all over the floor all the time.

So what I'm trying to do is buy the oval shower curtain and put the shower head inside the top of the curtain rail, and the only sensible way I can think of doing that is by attaching the head to the ceiling.

You CAN buy integrated oval shower curtain / shower heads but they're about a grand and a half. There must be something I'm missing.

Yes they are expensive. I've never seen cheaper solutions. You could make something yourself out of copper pipe (including the shower curtain rail).

A bend of the required radius is a bit beyond a standard pipe bender however.

Put a steel spiral inside and bend it on your knee, hipster style. I'm chuckling while writing this obvs.

On a more serious note. The reason these things seem to be expensive is they are not very popular anywhere in the world and generally get made by a few old english firms. Most of them have thermostatic shower valves beautifully chromed in solid brass bodies, coupled with the small quantities being made it has to cost money. I've never seen modern versions of the concept.

I did this, had to chase the pipes into the wall and the oval shower rail was a bastad to fit. Can't close the curtains all the way unless you want to be a human taco. Happy enough though, didn't cost the earth.

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Awesome! This is exactly the kind of thing I'm after.

I'm thinking if I could get one of thsoe oval shower rails like that ^^^^ but with the attachment points on the long sides, that's my starting point. Then if I could attach a shower head holder to the short head end, strong enough to hold a shower head without the long bar, that might do the job. Cheers, very inspiring.

But you've tanked the floor before you put rubber matting down(?) right?

I like all this rustic chic stuff like a wash basin in the middle of the kitchen and a bath that can be vacuumed under but there must have been a reason why baths became boxed and tiled in .

I'm looking at this sort of thing ...
https://sc01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB16zGbOFXXXXcfaXXXq6xXFXXX9/Q376-Handicapped-walk-in-bathtub-for-old.jpg

Nah, it's a double shower curtain, one in one out. Haven't had so much as a dribble but it's a dust trap, shoulda got a 'freestanding' bath with a flat back I could seal to the lustrolite. I'll probably rip it all out in five years when my soldered bends fail.

If you want to feed the shower hose up the wall, you'll need to clip it to the wall somehow. Otherwise it will just be flopping around at head height within the area you're using to shower. So at that point you may as well install a run of rigid pipe on the wall with an arm to hold the showerhead, like this and then work out how to fit the flexible hose onto the bottom of the pipe.

I got an L-shaped shower curtain rail from Byretech and I'm really impressed with the quality. I'm guessing you'd want this one but, like @Airhead said, not cheap. You used to be able to get shower curtains with vertical fibreglass rods in them (from a company called Tuckwell), which were absolute genius because they made a freehanging curtain more like a cubicle and less of a clingy mess. Annoyingly, I think they've stopped production.

EDIT: I don't know if you can get oval shower rails with the supports on the long side. I guess that's because it would allow too much leverage on the fittings if someone pulled down on one end. Byretech do additional supports though.

I have a phobia of cold wet shower curtains sticking to my skin.

Glass panels ftw.

Thanks dude, this is really useful. THIS is the kind of shower rail I was thinking about with supports on the long side but it's a good point about overloading the short end.

Can I just ask something about clipping it to the wall? My original idea was to clip it to the shower rail (at the front) - would that do the same thing? As you can see I've got a window in the way of attaching any pipes to the wall (but I do think that looks a lot better).

Ah! I stand corrected, I hadn't spotted that rail. I assumed that you would put the showerhead over the long side of the bath, but having it over the tap-end makes more sense.

I don't know what you had in mind for "clipping" the shower head to the curtain rail. I can't think of a specific bit of hardware that would do that unless you wanted to cludge it together with a universal bike light mount, since the diameter of the shower rail will be much bigger than a shower riser.

One option would be to mount a bottom-entry (ooh-er!) shower arm above the window so it goes over the curtain rail. That would allow you to attach a flexible hose from the tap, although you'll need to check that the fitting on the arm is for a hose, rather than a compression fitting for a rigid pipe. You could even fit another diverter valve to the tap, so that you could have one hose to the overhead fitting and one hose to the handheld. I have this one and it works well.

Brilliant! Thanks dude, this is making everything fall into place. I think the phrase I was missing is 'bottom entry', which is unusual for me. :D

So if I've not gone totally mad it seems something like THIS would actually do the whole job all in one, and I'd not need to worry whether or not the fitting on the arm is for a hose because its clearly designed for it.

Great shout on the diverter valve too. I had no idea they even existed.

Yup, that looks like it would do the trick. Obviously check the dimensions to establish that the shower head will be high enough and far enough from the wall and that the hose will reach. Then just find some fittings that will secure it to whatever the wall is above your window, it's a long arm on a small plate so the leverage could be considerable if you accidentally pull on it. You may also want to check what you're drilling into above the window, because there may well be a metal lintel.

Awesome. And good shout on the lintel - I know our walls are masonry so they should take a bit of drilling but worth checking whether or not there's something behind it. Thanks dude. If you ever need any help with ISPs I'm happy to return the favour.

I have uncovered this 'thing' underneath some stud wall. I would like to remove it if possible.

Q1. What is it? I assume some kind of old electrical supply.

Q2. How do I work out if it is safe to cut out and pull off the wall? Some of the massive cables have previously been angle grinded through, and anything coming out of it in my unit definitely has no current, however there are some cables that go up into the unit above me (which I am unable to access). I have waved a non-contact pen all over it and it seems to be dead; however I'm curious if there is anything else I can do to avoid potentially massive amount of volts flowing through me.

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bottom entry

Bathroom floor tiles. Grouting is fucked. Is it easy to sort out? How what?

Anyone got any tips on how to seal a leaking joint in copper pipe without draining the system? (can't drain it down as it's connected to a header tank and has no isolation valve that I can find). Just looking for a short term fix before I get a plumber in to redo the whole thing alongside a boiler replacement.

Am i screwed?

For context ; I opened up under my bathroom sink as the tap was loose and found the pipe was dripping and rotting the cabinet (and maybe my floorboards and joists). The current situation is a makeshift drip tray, but the pipe us super close to the wall so most of the water is soaking into what used to be the plastering.

Which joint is leaking? Pipe into the tap tail?