Shower Design and Controls

There are many factors that go into good shower design and enjoyment. If I had to boil it down to one simple statement about what makes a good shower good, it would always come down to the number of gallons of water coming at you per minute. Few people can enjoy showering with a little drug store type shower head that spits out a trickle. Water coming at you is what it is all about.

Unfortunately, as you might have already guessed, shower enjoyment is mostly at odds with water conservation. That being said, understand that the more water coming at you, the more enjoyable the experience. A 5 gallon/minute shower is more enjoyable than a 2.5 gal/min shower. A 10 gal/min shower is more enjoyable than a 5 gal/min shower, and a 20 more than 10. You get the picture.

The following guide will help you expand your knowledge of all the wonderful possibilities that exist for improving your personal shower experience. It will take you through some of the many options that are available to you, and hopefully inspire you to start designing your perfect bathroom retreat. You will learn a lot from this guide, but I can't stress enough how important it is to talk to a shower specialist.

When designing a custom shower your first few considerations should be about how you want to use your shower. Some questions you should be asking yourself are: Will this shower be used for more than one person at a time? Do I need separate temperature controls if it is a two person shower? Should I get a steam shower? Can I stand in the shower so that when I first turn the water on, I won't be in the direct path of the cold water? Should there be a bench? The amount of space you have in your bathroom that is available for the shower will be a large factor in helping to answer the above questions.

The more room you have to work with, the more fun we can have with the overall design. However, that doesn't mean that you can't have a fabulous customized bathroom if you don't have a huge amount of space. It just means that we will have to be a little more creative with our use of space, and we will have to prioritize the number of outlets (shower heads, body sprays and hand showers) we place in that space. It's best not to overdo the number of outlets in a small space.

Fixtures:

After determining the general space and layout of your shower area, we can now consider how to add to the enjoyment of your shower experience with multiple outlets. Lets go in order of importance:

1. A wall mounted shower head, not a hand shower acting as one, is the first and most important outlet. The ability to keep your body warm with water coming out in a wide spray, at an angle, should be your top priority. Any other outlets should be in addition to, but not instead of a good wall mounted shower head.





2. A hand shower comes next. If you have a bench it becomes more important, and if you build a steam shower, it becomes a must. If you have a bench, the hand shower should be placed where you can sit and use the hand shower. I have seen some poorly designed showers that have a bench far from any water outlet. If a bench is too far from a water outlet, the user becomes too cold to enjoy sitting and relaxing on the bench. The bench is therefore of limited use and ends up as little more than a foot rest. If a hand shower is placed by the bench, the bench becomes useful as an alternative to a standing shower when you are tired, have an injured ankle or leg, or if you cannot stand for long periods of time. The hand shower is also a must with a steam shower to greatly enhance the experience by cooling you off during your steam time. A hand shower is also very helpful to clean the shower after it has been used.





3. Body sprays are great for increasing your enjoyment because they increase the water coming at you. They are also great for concentrating the water on a specific body part such as a sore back or a pulled muscle; and they are nice alternative to an unsightly shower cap if you want to shower without getting your hair wet. If you have the space, I generally recommend installing at least 4 body sprays. Left and right for the upper body and left and right for the lower body. Body sprays should be placed 15-18” to the left and right of the center; angled in toward center.





4. An overhead shower, sometimes called a rain shower, can do a great job to increase the water coming at you, and thereby increase your overall enjoyment. A lot of people will be unhappy that I put this as the last option. Rain showers look great and project an image of a relaxing deluge of water. The reason the over head shower comes in last for me is simply the direction the water is flowing; straight down. Standing up straight, staying warm, breathing. Pick any two of these three when you use an over head shower.
   



5. A Waterfall type of shower head is also available. This type gives the user a deluge of water. Some people like it over there bench just on the wall to give the user a fresh fealing of standing in a waterfall.

Once the outlets are selected first, we can configure the needed controls. There are two main types of valves that are used to control the water temperature and meet the anti-scald safety requirements: Pressure Balance Valve and Thermostatic Valve.

A pressure balance valve is the type you find in most hotels. You simply turn the dial from off, though the cold setting to the hot. There is typically no volume adjustment. This type of valve is best used when there is just a single shower head outlet. This type of valve will sense pressure drops like those from a toilet flushing.

A thermostatic valve is always the better choice. Even for a single outlet. Most thermostatic valves allow you to adjust the temperature separately from the volume. This allows the user to set the temperature and then turn the water on and off. With this method, you don't have to find the temperature you used last time. You simply turn on the water and it is already set.

Thermostatic controls are the valve of choice when using multiple outlets. They are designed to allow multiple outlets. They also have a much greater water flow rate needed for multiple outlets. Unlike the pressure balance valve, the thermostatic valve looks at the outlet temperature not pressure to maintain the set temperature giving it the greater ability to maintain the proper temperature.

I can not stress how important a knowledgeable sales person can be in correctly configuring the controls and calculating what is needed based upon the desired outlets. Nothing is more disappointing that having a large car wash type shower and not having enough pressure to run it after the tile is up. I'm not going to get into the technical side of making the dream shower work,

Shower Floor:

Most upscale showers will have a custom floor. Traditional floors have a drain in the middle. This forces the tile or stone to be made from relatively small pieces so that they floor can be sloped properly towards the drain. This is inconsistent with the trend for larger and larger tile over the last 20 years everywhere else. A relatively new type of drain can solve that problem and add to the design as well. It is called a linear drain that I will talk about next. This type of drain is put along one of the walls, (back wall) and will allow you to use any size flat material that you would like. This also opens up the possibilities to have a great looking, non-barrier, no threshold shower. This is an upcoming trend.

Shower Drain:

There is a trend to pay more attention to the drain than there has been in the past. Square drains are on the rise and heavy cast drains are more desirable than the thin stamped drains. As noted above, linear drains will become more popular as they are both good looking and solve design problems.

Shower Door:

While the trend is to have a walk in shower if you have the space, there are some great looking doors that can add design to the shower. I am going to take a trip next month to see such great looking Italian made encloses that I will most likely talk about them in greater detail next month. In the meanwhile, pictured is a contemporary barn door steel roler system that has become popular at our showroom. Also an Italian design screen that creates shower space and looks great.

Steam:

Steam Showers are a great way to relax and treat yourself to a little extra "me" time. Steam opens up your pores and rejuvenate's you skin. Designing a steam shower is easy. You buy the generator and controls. You slope your ceiling. You build your shower door to the top of the shower. All other features you do are icing on the cake. I do typically recommend with steam that you place a hand shower by the bench to cool off. We sell two lines of steam. Steamist and Thermasol. Both lines offer may luxury features including aroma-therapy, chroma-therapy, music integration and remote controls.

Storage:

This is a battle I always seem to loose. The more storage, shelves, baskets that are put up, the more that ends up in the shower. That being said, by far, the most popular storage and continued upward trend, is corner basket shelves. They are convenient, out of the way, have many sizes and relatively easy to clean. You can put them in more than one corner and it even looks good to stack a smaller corner over a larger corner shelf.

Another combo solution that works well is if your long wall is an outside wall and you want a hand shower by the bench but you typically can't run a line in an outside wall, you build a half high wall along that exterior wall to run your pipe and create a very long shelf the is convenient for lots and lots of shower products.

I have just scratched the surface on this subject. The goal of this guide is to help you to examine the possibilities to enhance the enjoyment of your shower. To focus on design and desires, rather than on the technical aspects. Remember, your master bathroom can be a private sanctuary in your own home. It should provide you with the restorative powers of a day at the spa and the relaxation of a day on the beach. And it doesn't have to cost a lot. Poor shower design consists of a shower space that doesn't properly fill your needs.

For more information or to see most of the products shown here, please visit us at Union Hardware.