Both our showers have packed in - one stuck on too hot, the other on tepid. Unfortunately they are past recovery - we’ve had them about 11 years. We were warned at the time not to buy cheap, but we were restoring the house to a budget.
So we need to replace them but would like this time good quality / good value and I wondered if anyone has any suggestions please for brands we can look at. The type we want is dual head - main shower overhead but then also a hand-held attachment.
As always, thanks for any advice / suggestions.
Is it just the thermostatic mixers that have failed, or are you looking to replace the whole lot (mixers, risers, valves, hoses, heads)? 11 years is pretty good, even for quality mixers. Go look in your local brico shed place (or brico leclerc, Leroy merlin, castrorama etc), they should have a good selection.
1 Like
My BIL wanted quality, bought a double shower (douche and handheld) cost €140, mine Brico depot, albeit a few years back when they were slightly better IMO) for €18. Mines still going he is on his second! They both still drip for a few seconds after you have finished so in operation the same.
1 Like
These are Castos, or our local brico and I think we chose not the most expensive, but not the cheapest either
That’s why I was hoping for a suggestion for a quality brand - price in its own doesn’t seem to guarantee quality.
1 Like
A lot fail because of limescale build up on the shuttle inside. The wax in the thermostat generally lasts unless it freezes like in un-used gites etc.
All in all a bit of a lottery.
1 Like
You can buy good brands ie Grohe & Hansgrohe on Amazon either.FR or DE easily and cheaper than the Bricos.
2 Likes
I’m not sure there are any quality brands any more with bathroom fittings, beyond a certain fairly basic level. I’ve seen excruciatingly expensive commercial thermostatic mixer taps fail in just a couple of years (cost of a replacement valve/cartidge combo is £500+, really) while our budget (20 quid on ebay) no-name mixer is still good after 15 years. As with many things, they seem to be made in Chinese factories in large numbers and then priced according to badge/minor cosmetic external changes.
I’d just try to choose the least complicated design with separate taps for temperature and flow for best reliability.
1 Like
There’s one in IKEA that we’ll be getting for our new bathroom as it ticks all the boxes. The main problem with others we’ve had is the dodgy mechanism in switching between opverhead and hand-held so don’t go for one with a pull up/out stop… nightmare. Unfortunately we haven’t had it long enough to comment on reliability…
1 Like
Thanks Angela, that looks interesting not least because OH hates the taps that just have smooth round knobs because with wet / soapy hands he finds he cannot adjust them properly. That looks like it’s got a flange that makes it easier to grip.
We brought all of ours from local plumbers merchant as we wanted to see them in the flesh first. They are all Gröhe and doing fine.
2 Likes
During a recent renovation we tried (and failed) to find in France good quality traditional looking showers and bath taps.
In UK this would be fairly straight forward but we had absolutely no joy in France.
2 Likes
Exactly - my problem too - and they have quite a tendency to seize up - or at least those little pull knobs do…
1 Like
SuePJ, my recommendation would be Gröhe.
After 30 years in the house, I reluctantly agreed we needed to replace the bathroom, so I did the research. Gröhe and Hansgröhe were always the brands which were recommended very highly, though not the only ones. They were widely available, whereas some of the other brands were less so in our area (so we couldn’t go to see them).
18 months in, no problems at all. And Mrs P can turn the control to lock it so there’s no dribble afterwards as often as I can, which is almost always. The controls are smoooth and round but i never have any difficulties: the temperature doesn’t need adjusting, because it’s set to suit both of us: all we need do is twist the overhead/handheld control one way or the other.
1 Like
Hansgröhe and the sibling Gröhe are both recommended by me. Whilst they are an expensive initial outlay, both are longlasters. We have fitted them throughout our home and in nine of our apartments. In sixteen years, not one has failed.
2 Likes
Richardson’s plumbers north side of Beziers stock Hans Grohe good quality
Gröhe do seem to be the equivalent [as was] of IBM “Nobody ever gets fired for specifiying Gröhe”.
I think the price difference, ideally, is in the quality/quantity of chroming and brass. That said, I bought an o/head plus h/held at Brico Depot [VCL] for €25. It was so cheap i thought it was bound to fail pronto but it was still working perfectly 5 years later, when I sold up.
… nobody got fired…
One thing that you defo get with a more expensive shower is a better quality handset hose. Lots of chrome, not ‘silvery plastic’, the spiral doesn’t de-spiral, much more flexible…
Looks good Angela. Apart from the soapdish top of the mixer valve being ribbed on the 199€ one, what diff between it and the 179€ model? I couldn’t see it in the specs or pix.
The fixings are different and of course it has a different unpronounceable name! To be honest, I just liked the look of the more expensive one… no idea of the relative build quality though…
(I don’t buy these sorts of things on-line - I’ve found, as with taps, that I really need to see them and feel them in order to make a decision that I am satisfied with.)
1 Like
As others have said, Grohe and Hansgrohe are both a good bet. You can get good prices online at https://www.reuter.com/. They also have a good service where they check you’ve put all the right bits in your order, which can be helpful when you’re buying shower stuff as there are often various different components depending on what configuration and options you want.
1 Like
In my experience, the thermostatic ones always go wrong eventually. I now buy the single tap sort that you can adjust to temperature. Unless you are under the shower for far too long, the temp. stays the same.