Is this shower and valve placement acceptable?

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kingoflondon

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bathroom.JPG


I am hoping to get some advice. I am paying a lot of money to have a new bathroom installed. To do this job the contractor completely gutted the old bathroom, the walls were completely open. I came home today to take a look at the tiling, and I noticed that the shower valve and head are about 2.5 inches off center. you can see in the picture that the valve should be in line with the center of the tile and it's obviously wide. It doesn't line up with the drain or the light which are centered to the middle of the stall.

I feel pretty upset about this, seems like a mistake to me. Before I raise a big stink with the contractor, I want to know if there is any excuse for this not being centered and also would it be a massive job to move it to the center now that the tiling has been done? I have enough spare tiles left over depending how much would need to be removed to rectify this.

Am I over-reacting or is this a mistake on my contractor's part? Would I be within my rights to insist he puts this right at his expense? As I say, this is a complete renovation done at great expense - all the walls were open and they already moved the shower from where it was in the old bathroom so I can't see why they couldn't make the adjustment. Any advice would be hugely appreciated!
 

Jadnashua

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There might be a stud right there where you want the valve. If that's the case, it would be a major effort to move it now. Can't tell from here. It would have been much easier at the beginning before the walls were covered. This should have been fairly obvious before the walls were closed in, though.

It does appear that the shower head is aligned with the valve, so moving both over would mean tearing up a fair amount of wall unless it can be accessed from the rear, and maybe all of it if you have to cut or move the stud. If you don't have to move a stud, then, you'd only need to replace a couple of tile that currently have holes in them.

This is a tough call. Nothing says that it needs to be perfectly centered, but many people prefer it to be. Bottom line, it's your house, your money. Being over towards the doorway a little makes it easier to turn it on and adjust before you enter the shower. If it's something that is going to bother you forever, talk to the GC, and explain your issues.
 

kingoflondon

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2 or 3 inches off center is probably a mistake. 6" or more would be intentional.
That's what I'm thinking. The studs aren't blocking things so much that it couldn't be in the center I believe. It's close but not in the middle where the grout line is. I would have preferred to have the shower head centered and the valve offset if there was a good reason it couldn't be done in the middle. I haven't done many of these projects before, i don't know whether I'd be being reasonable to expect the GC to put this right. I was never told it couldn't be centered.
 

Reach4

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Maybe some kind of slide rail shower could make the shower head hole look like it was planned.
1355.jpg
 

kingoflondon

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Maybe some kind of slide rail shower could make the shower head hole look like it was planned.
1355.jpg
That's a really good idea, if nothing else can be done this could be the best way to make the best of the situation. Thanks for the suggestion.
 

Cacher_Chick

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I don't see anything I would worry about. If there is a wall stud there, it would be problematic to move it without effecting the wall behind it. One benefit to this offset is that the shower head will direct water slightly more away from the opening rather than towards it.
 

Terry

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The HansGrohe i-Box is a rather large valve.
I've had to install those off center at times too. Most of the time, there is someone there I can confir with during installation.
I havc some customers that prefer it a bit off center, either for turning it on before entering, or because a shower bar is being installed.

There have been times where I took the studs out and re-framed the wall. It's a big valve.
 

kingoflondon

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Thanks for all the feedback, what a great forum. I feel much better about things now. I spoke to the GC and he explained that the studs were problematic plus as you say the valve is big. I live in a very old house, (the walls were previously plaster) and apparently the work involved to get it centered would have been significant as apparently the whole wall would have needed to be re-framed due to the building regulations where I live in NJ. What we are going to do is move the light fitting so that it is centered over the shower head. I think that will make a big difference to it looking naturally correct to the eye. I think that is the misalignment which was causing me the biggest issue as the ceiling is pretty low. Easier than ripping the wall out anyhow!
 

Dj2

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This misalignment would bother me too. Can you upload a pic of the behind the wall?
A stud in the way can be relocated and hot n cold supply lines be adjusted.
 

kingoflondon

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This misalignment would bother me too. Can you upload a pic of the behind the wall?
A stud in the way can be relocated and hot n cold supply lines be adjusted.

I don't have anything behind wall, but this is face on. I think if they move the light so this is in line, once the door is up and the trim on it won't bother me as much. Supposedly the stud was impossible to move without reframing the whole wall which is apparently a big job as there is a staircase behind this. Apparently due to my local building code. To be fair, the code guys are very strict where I am, I just hope the GC is telling the truth and not just covering his ass. Not thrilled that I wasn't consulted about it, but I just hope when it's all done it won't be so noticeable.

faceon.jpg
 

prpsrv

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I'm a general contractor who specializes in interior remodeling. I always center my valves and shower head. I think it is highly unlikely that it couldn't be centered. Even stairs have fairly common framing configurations and it should be easy to temporarily support and remove the stud that's in the way (if it really is) then add a couple of Jack studs ands a 4x header. Maybe 3 - 4 hours labor and $25.00 in materials.
Not trying to be a negative Nellie but I think the resulting misalignment is due to laziness. At a minimum I would have taken pictures and texted my client prior to proceeding. As another poster said, "It's your house". The contractor won't have to see it everyday.
 

Terry

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I'm a general contractor who specializes in interior remodeling. I always center my valves and shower head. I think it is highly unlikely that it couldn't be centered. Even stairs have fairly common framing configurations and it should be easy to temporarily support and remove the stud that's in the way (if it really is) then add a couple of Jack studs ands a 4x header. Maybe 3 - 4 hours labor and $25.00 in materials.
Not trying to be a negative Nellie but I think the resulting misalignment is due to laziness. At a minimum I would have taken pictures and texted my client prior to proceeding. As another poster said, "It's your house". The contractor won't have to see it everyday.


It's a big valve. It depends on how many studs you want to move, and if that is even possible.

linda_tub_07.jpg


I had room here to add a stud to the left and center the valve.

miller_kohler_shower_1.jpg


This one had the valves off center and the shower bar in the center.

ong_4610.jpg


Plenty of room here and it was centered.

spaces_hg_03.jpg


The designer wanted this one off center.

spaces_6288.jpg


Another one mounted off center, to be closer to the door opening.

Many of the custome setups we do will have an off center valve. Sometimes it's just easier for the homeowner.
There are plenty of ways that showers can be done.
 

MichaelBukay

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A good GC would have called and asked you if you had a problem with it being off-center. There is almost always a way to do it correctly in my opinion. If I was going to do this for my customer, I would have called you to ask if it was acceptable. At least they should have given you an option of off-center or more expensive work. Taking a shower in there would make me think about it being off-center every time.
 

Terry

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On this wall, the stud was pretty close to center.

gott_tub_02.jpg


For the i-Box it was easier to just reframe the wall. Not always an option though.

gott_tub_05.jpg


And done! :)
 

sirbOOmdotcom

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Yeah, sorry. That installation looks terrible to me. I don't want to make this worse for you but I would go absolutely nuts. Obviously we'd need to see the inside of the wall to know how it's built but you won't convince me I can't add a couple studs and remove or at least slice a portion out of the culprit stud that's in the way. On the other hand, you may consider having the tile work redone - maybe cheaper, I don't know - so that the center line of the grout matches to the center line of the valve/shower head. That'd probably keep me from noticing the drain is off-center. Know, though, that I am so damn OCD about these things I could never depend on bathroom remodels as my sole source of income....
 

Sluggo

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Well, since this was first posted 6 months ago, I suspect it's resolved for better or worse, but I still have an opinion. While I am pretty anal about symmetry, I think that installation would look perfectly fine if the OP followed the suggestion to install a shower head on a sliding bar. With the water supply and control valve off center, the bar and head could be centered and the flex hose would not have an interference issue with the valve. In fact, if I were installing a sliding bar, I would not want to have the valve centered.
 
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