Feedback on design idea going against Delta std recommendations

[Terrence (Todd) Love]

Hi there,

I’m a homeowner and have been GC’ing my own part-time renovation (I hope I did. My primary worker is a retired master carpenter, and the project has been mostly fantastic; we've mostly rebuilt the entire house over the last 24-mos. At the moment, we are renovating the master bathroom. Admittedly, we have a very non-standard design in mind (but always for a reason). Anyway, I thought I had the infrastructure figured out, when I got a curve-ball from Delta. So I’d love to hear your collective expertise. Here’s the situation:

We are building a drop-in shower/tub combo. We want to have the diverter on the left wall, with non-primary waterfall head above it. The tub spout and primary shower head are on the opposite, right wall. After a mind-numbing amount of research, we settled on the Delta 17 Series Valve Trim with 3-Setting Integrated Diverter, based on a Delta R22000 rough-in. Everything was great until I noticed that Delta indicates that the R2200 cannot be used with a tub. Specifically, they say the following two things:

The R22000 unfortunately cannot be used for tub spout water supply because it does not have a bottom port for tub spout installation
&
We do not recommend to install a tub spout with the R22000 Integrated rough valve as the flow rate from the spout would be lower than a standard installation.

My question is, do I care? I don’t know squat about flow rates, but I can say that the tub will be used about once per decade. Do I really need a downward valve to run my plumbing to the primary shower and/or tub faucet? Here is what we had planned:

On the 3 port diverter, outlet 1 was going to be for the main shower. There would be a pair of 90-degree elbows coming off the diverter port, & the pipes would drop down the wall, run under the tub, and come up the other side.
Outlet 2 was going to be the tub faucet, and the piping would be the same.
Outlet 3 would be for the waterfall head, and the pipe would simply run upwards.

Seemed like a good idea to my non-plumbing expert mind. Despite Delta’s recommendations otherwise, is it a doable configuration?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

-Terrence Love (no relation)

 

[Jadnashua]

The bottom port can probably flow 6-7 gpm, maybe a bit more if you chose the thermostatically controlled cartridge and trim with a 1/2" rough-in. A shower is mandated to flow less than 2.5 gpm, maybe a third of the tub volume. Worst case, it could take three times longer to fill the tub, but it probably wouldn't approach worst case, but definitely will not be the same volume as a valve with the bottom outlet. The hassle is not only the time it would take to fill the tub, but in the interim, how much heat will be lost during that time before you even get in. This may result in you filling it with hotter water, depleting your WH faster, too, so it's still comfortable when you get in.

Is the bottom plug removable?

FWIW, on a drop in tub used as a shower, you must be REALLY careful about waterproofing the rim. A tub designed to be tiled will have a tiling flange to direct water at the tub/wall junction into the tub rather than the walls. You will need either an add-on tiling flange or some other method to keep water out of the walls. It can be done, but it's harder than with one designed for use as a shower.

 

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[Terrence (Todd) Love]

Thanks for the input Jim. The thing about the Delta R22000 rough-in is that there is no bottom valve/port. Thats the whole problem (assuming there actually is a problem). So that takes us back the original question of whether I can redirect a top valve/port to come around and then go down...

Regarding waterproofing, yes my builder-buddy made that same point. Adamantly. So we bought a custom made tub with tile flanges on 3 sides, and no skirt in the front (so we can tile).

 

[Jadnashua]

Sounds like maybe you should have picked up the R10000 rough-in versus the R22000. That would require separate trim for the diverter, though. Or, maybe the R10300. That one would feed the tub unless you pushed in the diverter, which would then feed your other diverter to send it to the various sprays.

Installing something not recommended by the manufacturer for that application often doesn't lead to ideal results...