Mr Skill

To install a shower in your bathroom requires four stages – the waste pipes and trap, the water supply for your shower, the installation of a shower tray and fitting the shower enclosure. For the first two elements, you may need the services of a plumber in London or, for the latter two, a local handyman to help with the installation. Also, if you are going to be including a direct heat water boiler in your shower installation (rather than run it from your existing central heating supply) or a new shower pump, you will need to have your electrical work checked by a London electrician to ensure that it complies with the Building Regulations Part P.

Please note that if you are considering a body jet shower, direct heat water boilers do not have the power capacity for delivering a sufficient volume of water.

Stage4 – Fitting the Shower Enclosure

If you have not yet bought your shower enclosure, you might just want to take a look at our “Inspirations” feature about body jet showers and shower cabins. There are many different types of shower enclosures you can choose from and many of them will come with their own fitting instructions, but as a rule they follow the procedures below.

Note: With any enclosure it is vital that the wall and tray are fully waterproof, and that the uprights of the frame are vertical.

Start by laying the two fixed side panels flat, and putting a bead of anti-fungal silicone sealant into the channels at the top and bottom. Then gently attach the head and sill rails (there are normally screws provided) and slide on the plastic guide tracks. If the tracks are too long, use a hacksaw to trim them to the required length.

Push two of doorstops into the guide tracks and move them into the middle but do not tighten them up yet.

Stand the shower enclosure upright and slide the curved sliding doors into the head and sill rails, ensuring that the doors are the right way round! Then insert another doorstop into both the head and sill rails. Again, do not tighten them up yet.

Attach the wall channels to each side of the shower enclosure and stand it up on the shower tray – double checking that it is vertical. From the inside of the shower enclosure, use a wipe-dry marker pen to mark the positions for the fixing holes on the wall through the pre-drilled holes in the wall channels.

Take the shower enclosure away from the shower tray and check for hidden pipes and cables behind the fixing positions you have just made on the wall with an electronic detector. If all is clear then drill the fixing holes in the marked positions. Push rawlplugs into the holes, making sure they go in beyond the depth of the tile.

Run a generous bead of anti-fungal silicone sealant down both wall channels. Put the enclosure back onto the shower tray, screw in the fixing screws and remove any excess sealant with a wet sponge.

From inside the shower enclosure, drill holes in the wall channels and into the frame. Secure with the screws that are normally provided and cover the heads with screw caps (usually also normally provided). Drill through the plastic guide track and inner head channel, and now you can screw the doorstops into position.

If you have not already done so, seal the join between the tray and the tiled wall with a continuous bead of sanitary silicone sealant and continue around the outside edges of the enclosure.

If you have difficulty with fitting the shower enclosure, or with any stage of installing a new shower, you may wish to take advantage of some of the services available from tradesmen in London to help you finish the job

A tiler in London if your bathroom or shower room requires tiling or you have recessed the pipework into a wall. This is best done before completing the installation of your new shower.

A London plumber will also be able to help connect the waste pipe from your new shower to an existing waste water escape and assist with construction of the pipework for a new installation.

Local electricians in London will be required if you are installing an electric water heater or pump for your shower. Even if you are confident of doing this part of the job by yourself, your finished installation still requires “approval” under Part P of the Building Regulations

For other stages of “How to Install a Shower”, please see:-

Stage 1 – Drainage

Stage 2 – The Water Supply

Stage 3 – The Shower Tray

To install a shower in your bathroom requires four stages – the waste pipes and trap, the water supply for your shower, the installation of a shower tray and fitting the shower enclosure. For the first two elements, you may need the services of a plumber in London or, for the latter two, a local handyman to help with the installation. Also, if you are going to be including a direct heat water boiler in your shower installation (rather than run it from your existing central heating supply) or a new shower pump, you will need to have your electrical work checked by a London electrician to ensure that it complies with the Building Regulations Part P.

Please note that if you are considering a body jet shower, direct heat water boilers do not have the power capacity for delivering a sufficient volume of water.

Stage 3 – Installing a Shower Tray

Once the waste drainage is prepared and water supply connected, you are ready to install the shower tray and connect its waste outlet to the trap. Read any manufacturer’s installation instructions that come with the shower tray, since different designs may be fitted in slightly different ways.

First, hold the shower tray on its side and run a bead of anti-fungal silicone sealant around the waste hole.  Ideally you want to use a sanitary sealant for use in wet and humid areas. A local handyman in London should be able to provide you with a tube and a mastic gun.

Insert the waste outlet into the exit hole of the shower tray, so that it sits into the sealant. Make sure that you have fitted any washers supplied with the shower tray, and screw on the locking nut using an adjustable spanner. Fit the trap to the waste outlet.

Mix some mortar and using a trowel, lay a thin bed of mortar on the floor where the shower tray will be positioned. Rest the tray in place, bed it into the mortar and level it up with a spirit level. Tidy around the base of the shower tray, using a wet sponge to remove any excess and prevent scratches.

Open the floor hatch which gives access to the waste pipe and connect the water trap leading from the shower tray.

If you experience any difficulty with this project, or with any stage of installing a shower, you may wish to take advantage of some of the services available from tradesmen in London to help you finish the job

A tiler in London if your bathroom or shower room requires tiling or you have recessed the pipework into a wall. This is best done before completing the installation of your new shower.

A London plumber will also be able to help connect the waste pipe from your new shower to an existing waste water escape and assist with construction of the pipework for a new installation.

Local electricians in London will be required if you are installing an electric water heater or pump for your shower. Even if you are confident of doing this part of the job by yourself, your finished installation still requires “approval” under Part P of the Building Regulations

For other stages of “How to Install a Shower”, please see:-

Stage 1  – Drainage

Stage 2 – The Water Supply

Stage 4 – The Shower Enclosure

To install a shower in your bathroom requires four stages – the waste pipes and trap, the water supply to your shower, the installation of a shower tray and fitting the shower enclosure. For the first two elements, you may need the services of a plumber in London or, for the latter two, a local handyman to help with the installation. Also, if you are going to be including a direct heat water boiler in your shower installation (rather than run it from your existing central heating supply) or a new shower pump, you will need to have your electrical work checked by a London electrician to ensure that it complies with the Building Regulations Part P.

Please note that if you are considering a body jet shower, direct heat water boilers do not have the power capacity for delivering a sufficient volume of water.

Stage 2 – The Water Supply

When thinking about installing a new shower, you have to consider where the water supply is going to come from and whether you are going to require a water pump for your shower.  Most modern shower heads are designed to operate with a tenth of a bar of pressure, but that would barely be enough to get you wet – let alone have an invigorating power shower! The way to establish whether you need a pump or not is to calculate what the “unpressurised” (without a pump) pressure would be if you connected you shower to the cold water tank and relied on gravity to supply water to your shower.

The pressure rating is calculated by measuring the vertical distance between the bottom of the cold water tank and the head of the shower. So, if your cold water tank is in the attic of a three storey house and your new shower is on the ground floor, the distance between the two could be as much as 8 metres or 0.8 bar – which is a reasonable level of pressure. However, please note that if the pipes between the cold water tank and the shower head have a lot of bends or long horizontal runs, the pressure will be reduced accordingly. Including a water pump into the equation can increase the water pressure to 2 or 3 bar, but you will also need to fit a pressure reducing valve and, as with all shower installations, an isolation valve is recommended.

Power showers and body jet showers have their own integral pumps and should only be supplied directly from the cold water mains water.

To work efficiently, showers using mixer taps require their own dedicated water feeds direct from the hot and cold storage tanks. It is recommended by plumbers in London that you should use 22mm pipes to give a better flow of water and obtaining your water supply from the kitchen (which probably only uses 15mm pipes) is definitely not a good idea. A dedicated cold water feed also means that if somebody flushes the loo while you are in the shower you will not get scalded while the cold water diverts to filling up the cistern, or have to wait until it has finished to rinse off soap! Hot water can be taken from a branch pipe, but if water is drawn from the source for another purpose (i.e. filling up a sink) the water in your shower may run cold. If the hot supply is to be taken from the cylinder distribution pipe the connection point should ideally be made above the height of the cylinder top.

If it is a thermostatic shower is being installed, then the hot and cold water supplies can be taken from any source, as the water temperature is self-controlled by the built-in stabiliser. You still may experience period of temporary low water pressure if those other sources are in use, but at least you will enjoy a constant temperature. Shower cabins and body jet showers, usually use mixer taps to control the temperature and power of water, but check the manufacturer’s instructions just to be certain.

If you have difficulty with putting together the pipework, or have chosen to recess it into the bathroom wall, you may wish to take advantage of some of the services available from tradesmen in London to help you finish the job

A tiler in London if your bathroom or shower room requires tiling or you have recessed the pipework into a wall. This is best done before completing the installation of your new shower.

A London plumber will also be able to help connect the waste pipe from your new shower to an existing waste water escape and assist with construction of the pipework for a new installation.

Local electricians in London will be required if you are installing an electric water heater or pump for your shower. Even if you are confident of doing this part of the job by yourself, your finished installation still requires “approval” under Part P of the Building Regulations

For other stages of “How to Install a Shower”, please see:-

Stage 1 – Drainage

Stage 3 – The Shower Tray

Stage 4 – The Shower Enclosure

To install a shower in your bathroom requires four stages – the waste pipes and trap, the water supply for your shower, the installation of a shower tray and fitting the shower enclosure. For the first two elements, you may need the services of a plumber in London or, for the latter two, a local handyman to help with the installation. Also, if you are going to be including a direct heat water boiler in your shower installation (rather than run it from your existing central heating supply) or a new shower pump, you will need to have your electrical work checked by a London electrician to ensure that it complies with the Building Regulations Part P.

Please note that if you are considering a body jet shower, direct heat water boilers do not have the power capacity for delivering a sufficient volume of water.

Stage 1 – Drainage

How you deal with the drainage from your shower may influence the type of shower enclosure you are able to install, so it is best to get this stage dealt with first. If your new shower is replacing an existing installation, waste pipes will already be in place. If it is a completely new installation, you will have to create an escape route for the waste water and connect it to an existing waste pipe – a nearby sink or toilet.

Dealing with the drainage when you are replacing an old shower unit with a new one is quite easy. The new shower tray will include the fittings to attach it to your existing waste pipe and there is no need to make any further adjustments in respect of the drainage of waste water from your new shower.

If it is a new shower installation, you should be able to cut a hole in the floor to install the waste pipe and water trap. You may need to have access to the water trap at some later date so extend the hole for the waste trap beyond where the outside edge of the shower tray will be or make a separate hatch nearby. If the floor is solid or there is not enough space beneath the shower for the pipework and water trap, you could consider installing the shower on a plinth (in which case you will need to reconsider the height of the faucet and shower enclosure) or purchasing a shower enclosure which accommodates a step up to the tray.

You also need to work out how you are going to run the drainage pipes from the shower and check how much space there is for the pipework beneath the proposed location for the shower tray. The waste shower water has to be connected via a 40mm diameter waste pipe to an existing drainage installation, and can travel no further than 3 metres before entering the soil stack or discharge gulley.

Building Regulations (Part H) has different guidelines for the depth of the water trap that has to be installed on the ground floor (38mm) or a higher floor (75mm) and if you are in any doubt about how to connect your shower drainage to an existing drainage installation, please consult with a London builder.

Other tradesmen in London that you may also need the services of include:-

A tiler in London if your bathroom or shower room requires tiling or you have recessed the pipework into a wall. This is best done before completing the installation of your new shower.

A London plumber will also be able to help connect the waste pipe from your new shower to an existing waste water escape and assist with construction of the pipework for a new installation.

Local electricians in London will be required if you are installing an electric water heater or pump for your shower. Even if you are confident of doing this part of the job by yourself, your finished installation still requires “approval” under Part P of the Building Regulations.

For further stages of “How to Install a Shower”, please see:-

Stage 2 – The Water Supply

Stage 3 – The Shower Tray

Stage 4 – The Shower Enclosure