Llantony Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 We have bought a shower in B& Q as it's just what we want and cheap. Is there likely to be a problem installing it in France? i.e. would the waste pipe be a different size from French ones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gosub Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 I guess by asking about the waste pipes, that it is a shower enclosure/tray that you have bought? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llantony Posted June 13, 2008 Author Share Posted June 13, 2008 Yes, a shower tray, oblong, sort of 2 circles in it + 2 sheets of glass. You can stand in the outer bit to drain off. It is the sort we wanted and the size we needed - and B & Q had a further reduction on showers so it cost over a third less. (We've also bought a 2nd hand trailer to move more stuff over!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Redman Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 Worst case scenarious :You need a new waste trap to match French plumbing but normally it is OKYou discover Castorma, also owned by Kingfisher, stock it for half the UK price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Trollope Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 You will need a new trap (the original will be crap anyway), because 40mm is a different size in the UK.......Given the state of the £, no way will you find it cheaper in France.Good luck installing it - you are going to need it (and alot of silicon). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chancer Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 You forgot patience and improvisation Nick! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyn_Paul Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 [quote user="Nick Trollope"]You will need a new trap (the original will be crap anyway), because 40mm is a different size in the UK.......Given the state of the £, no way will you find it cheaper in France.Good luck installing it - you are going to need it (and alot of silicon).[/quote]... and certainly not in Castorama ! - Brico Depot, perhaps... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 And whatever you do; it is guaranteed to leak! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 Right! Ours could rival the leaking qualities of a sieve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 We had a sort of general survey about showers on here some time back, SweetsThe consensus was that all of us who bought Cabines would never ever do so again!Next month, I plan to pull out the whole shower cabin, re-route the pipework - which the damned plumber was meant to do originally and was obviously deaf, blind and couldn't read good technical literal French - tile out the place and re-fit the shower properly.The plombiere was a guy who mainly worked on the nearby nuclear electricity generating site near Dunkerque......................So a large white and black mushroom cloud rising on the Franco-Belgian border wouldn't come as a great surprise! [:-))] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinfrance Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 A very interesting post,makes you think about the shower thing. Nothing good about water all over the place,but not where it should be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trees 2 Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 Strange that people don't like cabines: I bought one from Mr Bricolage three years back and it went together without silicone, as they said it would, and hasn't leaked yet.Maybe I've just been lucky?Instructions WERE rubbish though.......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 We've got 2, and they are OK, though one did need some fettling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinfrance Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 [quote user="trees 2"]Strange that people don't like cabines: I bought one from Mr Bricolage three years back and it went together without silicone, as they said it would, and hasn't leaked yet.Maybe I've just been lucky?Instructions WERE rubbish though..........[/quote]So you put together the shower,and no leaks. Thats the way to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyn_Paul Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Trees2 - does the shower tray have a lip all round, or is the top surface perfectly flat ? This, I believe, is to key which divides (sorry keys don't divide, do they) the leakers from the non-leakers.p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIG MAC Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Pulleeeeeese?Fit your shower with the UK trap...no leaks there.adapt the PIPEWORK so many variations on a theme possible here and so many pipes will fit inside each other but 38mm uk fitting pipe should insert into a Macalpine or similar type compression fitting with 40mm French pipe on the other side.thats if you dont simply debur it and glue one inside the other.to create a spigot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trees 2 Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 [quote user="Gyn_Paul"]Trees2 - does the shower tray have a lip all round, or is the top surface perfectly flat ? This, I believe, is to key which divides (sorry keys don't divide, do they) the leakers form the non-leakers.p[/quote]Lipped all the way round, the lip being about 20mm high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyn_Paul Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 [quote user="trees 2"][quote user="Gyn_Paul"]Trees2 - does the shower tray have a lip all round, or is the top surface perfectly flat ? This, I believe, is to key which divides (sorry keys don't divide, do they) the leakers form the non-leakers.p[/quote]Lipped all the way round, the lip being about 20mm high.[/quote]I rest my case !As I recall (although I haven't looked at - let alone bought - a UK shower trap for about 8 years) a UK trap lacks the facility to open it up from the top to remove the disgusting guck of hair and soap residue. Unless things have changed, and UK manufacturers now admit to the fact that their shower traps, might, sometime in their long life, actually get blocked, I'd go for a decent quality French one. You might have to ream the fibreglass hole in the shower tray by about a cm or so, but that's no big deal.P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIG MAC Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 We have had top access traps in the UK for about 15 years http://images.google.co.uk/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyF Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 [quote user="Dick Smith"]We've got 2, and they are OK, though one did need some fettling. [/quote]Snap! They were so much cheaper than a built-in and we were on a very tight budget. Meant we could have two instead of one. [:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyn_Paul Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 [quote user="BIG MAC"]We have had top access traps in the UK for about 15 years http://images.google.co.uk/ [/quote]Really ?? Shows how long it is since I really looked, 'though I imagine the likes of B&Q were somewhat slower than the better trade outlets to stock such state-of-the-art items !]]p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llantony Posted June 16, 2008 Author Share Posted June 16, 2008 Thanks for all the responses. I will pass the technical bits to my husband who will do the work (with me as general dogsbodyas usual).We haven't seen anything like this shower in Brico Depot so hope it's worth the effort of transporting it in our recently acquired 2nd hand trailer. We wanted something fairly minimal as the shower in our last UK house was a traditional door with metal surround and very hard to clean.We will probably buy loo, basin and bath in France. It will be lovely to get rid of that horrible, tatty bathroom with mismatched coloured suite! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kilnfield Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 Hi, I did exactly the same thing a number of years ago, thinking I'd bagged a bargain. The problem arose when connecting to the water supply as the French did not recognise 15mm piping. I was fortunate in having a neighbour, an engineer, who adapted the pipework for me, but be aware that the connection may be a problem.Another thing which may affect you is the water quality. My property is in the Indre et Loire in a limestone area and the build-up of scale on the element was very rapid so that the useful life of the shower was limited.Regards, Kilnfield Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chancer Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 When you speak of calcaire on the element it sounds like you are on of the few that have succeeded to use an electrically heated UK "power shower" to work in France. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIG MAC Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 Its almost impossible to find an incompatibility if French -vs- uk domestic pipework that a plumber cant know of a solution for in an hour (At £60 plus the dreaded Madam) and have executed within 2.....stop worrying...life's too short Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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