Shower Valve Types
Understanding the types of shower valve has become extremely important. Showers are becoming a basic necessity as everyone expects to have a hot shower on a cold wintry morning and a refreshing cold shower on a hot summer evening. When the shower falls into disrepairs, it is quite often due to a faulty shower valve if there is nothing wrong with the pipes. It is therefore worthwhile to know about the types of valves in greater detail.
Types of Shower Valves
Shower valves are commonly grouped into five different types primarily based on the nature as also the number of controls. This can be elucidated further for the benefit of those who are less familiar.
Among the widely known types is the sequential shower valve. This type has just a single temperature control and with only a single outlet. By adjusting the temperature control and the rate of flow you can operate the range of temperature from cold to hot.
The second type of shower valve is equipped with a temperature control and a flow control. This type of valve is generally used to supply a single overhead shower or alternately where there is a slider rail with detachable hand-held shower.
The third type of shower valve has 2 controls and 2 outlets, but with a single temperature control along with a diverter. The diverter can be operated from three different positions. Diverters do not facilitate precise control of the flow rate of water and they are more to be treated as on/off switches.
The fourth type of shower valve has 4 controls and 2 outlets with a temperature control and twin flow-rate controls. With these types of valves the flow rate to each outlet can be independently controlled to help simultaneous supply water to both outlets. This finds application where there is an overhead shower and a set of body jets.
The fifth type of shower valve has 3 controls and 3 outlets. The purposes of three controls are that 1 acts as a temperature control, the second is a flow-rate control and the third serves as a diverter. The general application for this type of valve is for supplying water to an overhead shower with a set of body jets.
It is useful to know that shower valves are typically defined as either thermostatic valves or manual valves. A thermostatic valve is equipped with a safety device to cut off the water flow when it over shoots the pre-set temperature.This is obviously to prevent burns if there is any reduction of pressure of cold water. This possibility is quite likely when other water outlets like sink taps, dish washing machine or laundering machine also function in parallel
It is common knowledge that valves are a simple and yet critical component of all piping systems. Valves help to control the flow of water to ensure that the supply flows in a desired direction and at a certain pressure.It may not be out of place to mention that apart from showers - valves have other application areas such as in furnaces and boilers for purposes of isolating different materials or to control the movement of a liquid or gas.
