A traditional shower valve over a bath, with a handheld shower on a hose.
The photograph shows the valve set into marble-effect tiles. It is a concealed valve, so all that shows of it is an upright plate in a bronze finish, with a crosshead control in the centre between two white lever handles. Beside it, the handset sits on a wall outlet at the end of a long metal hose.
The look
Traditional is the word people type for this kind of valve.
Crossheads and levers on a plate, a warm metal finish, and nothing on the wall that looks like a modern bar shower.
The finish carries through the set. The outlet beside the valve matches the plate, and the long hose on the handset is metal rather than plastic, so nothing on that wall breaks the look.
Behind the tiles
Concealed means the working part of the valve is in the wall, not on it. The valve body sits in a recess behind the tiles, the hot and cold supplies reach it inside the wall, and another pipe runs on through the wall to the outlet where the hose connects. What is left on show is the plate, the controls and the outlet, and everything else is hidden once the wall is tiled. So the work behind the plate has to be right first. How deep the body sits decides whether the plate lies flat against the tile face or stands off it. Where it sits decides whether it lines up with the tile joints and with the outlet beside it. And every joint behind the tiles needs testing while it can still be reached, because once the wall is finished the only way back to a weeping joint is through the tiles. On marble-effect tiles, where the pattern runs across the wall, a patched tile shows.
None of that work shows in the photograph, and on a concealed valve that is the idea.
Shower over bath
Over a bath, the handset does the work of a shower. It sits on the wall outlet, and lifts away on its hose when the water is wanted lower down.
That is what people mean by a handheld shower head with a hose. The valve sets the water, and the handset takes it to wherever it is needed.
Bathroom fitting
Our bathroom fitting page covers refits, shower rooms and tiling. When an old concealed valve needs changing, that is the concealed shower valve replacement we wrote up before.
Ring 07546 185778 and say what is over your bath now, and send a photograph if you can.
