Hob Mixer vs Wall Mixer

[Knurl]

We're renovating our bathroom and fitting a bath with a central wall spout.We want to fit a mixer on the bath-surround (the hob). That mixer must regulate the flow of hot and cold water to the spout.Is that hob-mounted mixer different to the one mounted verticaly in the shower recess and why? H& G want to charge me $400 for one, while the wall mounted shower mixer is only $140. Can someone please tell me why there's a difference.

[journeyman Mick]

You could try asking them what the difference (besides the price) is. One difference I can think of is the waterproofing. I've got a wall mixer for our shower (still not fitted ) and the cover plate just slips over the mixer boss with a rubber seal to keep water from running back into the wall. On a horizontally mounted unit water can collect on the cover plate and it would need a much better system to stop it leaking. Don't know that it'd be $260 worth of seal though. The other point is volume, the demand for wall mount would be far greater than horizontal mount, so the ecomomies of scale just aren't there. The same reason 2"senco gun nails cost way more than 3"ones.

Mick

[silentC]

The mixer I've got in my shower cost something like that. But it's a pressure balanced thermostatic mixer, which works a bit different to the way a flick mixer works. With a flick, you have two valves connected to the lever, one for hot and one for cold, and you control them manually to adjust the temp and pressure. With a PBTM there's a valve for temp and another one for pressure. When you adjust the temperature, the unit automatically mixes hot and cold to achieve the temperature and it compensates when you adjust the pressure so that the temp stays constant. The technology behind these things is more complicated. Maybe the hob mounted job is one of them?

Or maybe it's imported from Italy