In today’s video we’re going to share with you how to install a mixing valve, specifically
an American Standard mixing valve, which they sent us because we’re partnering with them
on a series of videos on how to remodel a bathroom, in particular a small bathroom.
So in today’s video we’ll show you how to install an American Standard mixing valve
and get you one step closer to remodeling your bathtub or shower.
This is the shower valve, the Quentin Shower Valve by American Standard, that you’re
going to learn how to install. This is what it looks like after everything is complete.
The bathroom is tiled in this case, and the trim kit is in chrome, which really makes
the tub shower pop. Like I said, this is the Quentin Bath/Shower Trim Kit. These are the
model numbers in case you’re interested. It comes with integral shutoffs. So that way
if you have to replace a cartridge, you can shut the water off to the shower valve. And
you want to remove the stops because they have rubber gaskets in them as does the cartridge.
So you want to take the cartridge apart, remove all the rubber gasket and seals before you
solder the mixing valve to the copper pipe because those little rubber O-rings will melt.
So just remove them. Keep them in a safe place. And that way you can put everything back together
once you’re done soldering. Follow your local plumbing codes in terms
of the shower valve height and location. In this case we centered it on the tub. So that
was about 14 ½” over off of the stud wall. As you can see, Steve is measuring over to
get it centered. Cut all your copper pipe to size using an auto-cut tool, like Steve
is using, or Ridgid No. 15. Dry fit all the copper fittings together like we did here.
And then use emery cloth to do a final cleaning of all the edges of the pipe that you cut.
You also want to deburr them. We have a great video on YouTube that shows you all the ins
and outs of soldering tips. But you want to clean out the brass fittings too with emery
cloth or brush like Steve is doing. Apply flux to all your copper pipes and fittings
and the brass fittings inside the shower valve, and then dry fit them together. You want to
put everything together before you apply heat to this setup. So as you can see we’re putting
all our elbows together, our PEX fittings. And we’re using MAPP gas for this project.
It just heats up the pipe a lot faster. So as you can see Steve is applying equal
heat to all the fittings and dabbing that with his solder. So you just want to make
sure that once you have the solder in place that you wipe it off with a sponge or a rag.
So we did this for all the fittings of the shower valve, again applying even heat. You
may have to heat up the brass a little bit longer than the copper. And again just using
the exact same solder that you use for all the copper fittings. So as you can see here,
it doesn’t take very long to heat them up and apply the solder using the MAPP gas. And
again, any drips you want to clean up. You don’t want any drips because that may compromise
the integrity of your solder at the joint. So again you may have to apply extra heat
to the brass. As you can see here, this is real time. We didn’t want to fast forward
through this. We wanted to give you the impression of it may take a little bit longer to solder
that copper to the brass. But again, make sure you dab off any excess solder to get
a nice, clean look. So at the elbow, you just want to make sure that that elbow, that 90°
for the tub spout, is vertical and plumb when you’re soldering it.
Add the plaster guard to the sower valve. The finished wall has to fit inside that shower
guard depth. So your finished wall is probably going to be about ¾ of an inch. What you
want to do is dry fit that inside the wall and then use a level to see how far out that
plaster guard sits from the finished wall. So we had to add ½” OSB inside that shower
stud spacing there because that would bump out the plaster guard enough for our finished
wall to sit inside of it. In this case we wanted our tub spout to be
about 3” to 4” off the tub, and we’re going to be using PEX. As you can see Steve
is attaching PEX. And you want that clamping ring to reveal about 1/8” or 1/16” of
the PEX behind it. So again, we’re dry fitting the shower valve.
We’re making sure that it’s centered on the tub. And then we also wanted to double
check that that tub spout was about 3” to 4” above the tub, just because in this case
that’s going to look good and adhere to our plumbing codes. Then we just screwed it
in place using galvanized screws, and Steve is making sure that the pipes are nice and
plumb. There was a little bit of wiggling in that
pipe leading down to the tub spout, so we tacked a 2x4 in place. You can actually screw
it in place, too, if you don’t have a Paslode nailer. We had to shim a little bit behind
it, but we also used a clamp to secure it in place.
Again, check your local building codes for the height of the shower head, in this case,
which was 71” because it would be above the shower niche, and we wanted it to be above
the shower niche. We had to drill through the 2x4s to fit the pipe, and then solder
the brass drop elbow to it. And then we just put that little stopper in place so we could
check the pressure of the plumbing. You always want to center it just like you
did with the tub spout and the shower valve. So center it. And then we put some blocking
in place to kind of make everything solid. So again, we had to unfortunately solder everything
in place inside the wall. Just be careful when you’re doing this. You can put a heat
shield behind it or a scrap piece of wood. Just make sure that that’s not burning when
you’re done. So Steve is putting all the PEX together here.
We use blue to indicate the cold water inlet. And then the nice thing is there’s no soldering
required for this; you can just clamp everything in place with those clamping rings, and you’re
done putting all the water lines together. Once the shower valve cools down, you can
put the cartridge in just like we did here. Make sure it’s oriented the right way. And
then there’s this little clamp that goes over top of that gray portion of the cartridge.
So you want to clamp all that down. Make sure your seals are in place correctly. You want
to screw those through screws down as well; make sure they’re nice and tight. Then on
this American Standard setup, there’s a little red arrow indicating the temperature.
We put that on 3 just to make sure it wouldn’t scald the user. Then finally you have your
stops, and you want to put those in place. Make sure all the rubber gaskets are appropriately
set. And you can tighten them down using a pair of channel locks. So make sure those
are nice and tight as well. And then Steve just put together a little mechanism to test
the pressure. You can also use a SharkBite fitting. He can also put the mechanism up
in the drop elbow and tested the pressure. When you’re tiling your shower, leave enough
room around the shower valve to access the shutoffs. That’s really, really important.
We placed a chrome fitting over top of the cartridge, then the escutcheon. And the escutcheon
is held in place using two screws. You just need to position those two screws through
the escutcheon and into the shower valve itself and tighten them down by hand, not with an
impact driver—that’s super important. Then there’s this little cover that goes
over top everything that covers the screws. Now you’ll need a little Allen wrench to
tighten down the handle. The handle for this setup is really cool because you just pull
up, it turns the water on, and then you adjust the temperature left to right. Super simple.
You always want to flush out the system too. Make sure that you do that before you put
the shower head in place. One of the things that we really like about
this setup is the tub spout. It just slides onto the copper pipe, and there’s a little
Allen screw that sets it in place. But you have to clean off your copper pipe. Use a
piece of emery cloth to do that. And in this case, you need about 1 ½” of copper pipe.
So we mark that and then cut it with an auto-cut tool. It’s just the easiest tool in this
particular setup because it’s a tight space. We do recommend deburring that and also getting
it nice and smooth with the emery cloth. So again the tub spout just slides right on.
And one tip that we have for you is just turn it over to position your Allen wrench, and
then you can tighten it to the copper pipe. But it’s super simple; there’s no soldering
required, which is awesome. And it’s very, very quick to install.
Add about six to seven revolutions of Teflon tape to your shower arm before you screw it
into the drop elbow. And also put your escutcheon on before you do that. So again, this is the
last step. So we’re just going to screw the shower arm into the drop elbow, but don’t
cross-thread this. That’s definitely something you want to avoid. Get it nice and tight.
Place your escutcheon in place. And then flush out the system again before you add your shower
head. Now in this setup, we also needed to apply
Teflon tape to the top of the shower arm. Now there’s a rubber gasket that came with
the shower head. You just want to put this down inside the shower head for a good seal
between it and the shower arm. So we screwed that in place by hand and then used a crescent
wrench to tighten it down about another half turn. So there you go. That’s your shower
head. Looks pretty good. It worked. It’s functional. And we’re pretty happy with
the setup of this shower. As you can see this is the finished tub spout
look. This is the shower valve with the escutcheon plate. This is the shower head. When you put
everything together with that floating sink and the tile, it looks awesome.
Lots of really great tips and tricks in today’s video on how to install a mixing valve, specifically
an American Standard mixing valve. If you want to take your bathroom remodeling to the
next level, check out BathroomRepairTutor.com. That’s where we have all our online classes
on how to do things like install cement board, tile the shower surround, build a walk-in
shower, you name it. They’re all over on BathroomRepairTutor.com.
Thanks again for watching the video. Take care. We’ll talk to you soon.