iBathUK Modern Chrome Thermostatic Exposed Shower Bar Mixer Brass Diverter Valve SM261

Started leaking after 5 years. Well worth for money and works well.

Just fitted this as a replacement for a 'quality' bar shower mixer that had dodgy washer style valves and was dripping whenever the hot water came up to pressure.The ceramic valve on this has solved that problem and it was a complete doddle to fit (being standard width, thread etc.). The quality seems good (totally brilliant for the price). Delivery was prompt (make sure you select Bathroom Shop if they are not the default seller - just choose the link under 'Other Sellers on Amazon' where it says 'x new from {price}'). I don't now how it will fare with age or cleaning products, but will just be happy if it lasts a few years compared to the alternative brand names costing as much as £250 or more.Like another reviewer, I've just ordered another one for the main bathroom having tested this one in our en suite.

Arrived on time and was well packaged. It took me no more than 10 minutes to unscrew the existing unit and fit the new unit. All can be done with one large adjustable spanner. I even managed to test it inside the 10 minutes and it worked perfectly well. One doesn't need to be experienced in DIY plumbing to change one of these. I dear say i might have paid about £80 for a plumber to do it and would probably have paid about another £80 for a more expensive unit for a unit chosen by the plumber so this was a job well worth doing myself and a product well worth buying on Amazon. The distance between the pipes is indeed standard at 150 mm and the threads at least in my case seem to be standard and so it really was a case of turning the water off at the main tap, unscrewing the old unit, screwing on the new unit and turning the mains supply back on. The unti looks fine. A little different from the one I removed but looks perfectly good.

This mixer is currently very good value for money. Time will tell ofcourse, but it has started off well. The temperature and on/off engraving / graduations are however really poor and need a magnifying glass to spot them. Also as with so many internet purchases and Amazon ones direct from vendors, delivery paperwork was non existant, as was any evidence of the 10 year warranty, advertised in the Amazon listing. Hence if it fails, how can one confidently make a claim. I'd like another for the en suite but am hesitant for above reasons, when there are so many others around

My Marflow shower valve controller (cost now £160-200) was leaking badly (furred up I think by the hard water) - I tried to dismantle to replace parts but could not separate it. Was surprised to find so many similar items on here around £30-40. I was wary of doing any interfering with plumbing and water - but fitting this item was simple and straightforward after shutting off the water stop cock.I find that the controls have small linearity of movement. In particular the temperature control is not sensitive and is slower to respond to adjustments than the original - need to wait awhile for it to 'wake up'. If I had known this I might have have chosen another model. But even so, I have replaced the control and saved a lot of money compared with the original - cheaper than the cost of spares for the original!

Shame about this - first class delivery and very easy to fit (replacement). Seems solidly built and works fine as a thermostatic valve (controlling temperature) BUT the flow noise created by the water regulator valve is absolutely horrible.At full flow it's fine. At a very low flow it's fine. But anywhere in the "normal" shower flow setting the noise of the water restrictor in the pipes is terrible. In the confines of a shower enclosure it's offensive plus everyone in the house can hear the pipe noise.Whether this is a one-off or they just use cheaper (and very nasty) quarter-turn valves I'm not sure but this one is going straight back.

We bought this product when our shower controls started to constantly drip water, and no matter how many times we tried to fix the problem the drip would always come back. The shower mixer that was fitted when we moved in was a much more expensive mixer than we were willing to buy, and on recommendation from our builder decided to buy a "cheaper" bar shower. If we had bought the same shower mixer that was already installed it would have cost us over £150.Best decision we could have made.This is an excellent shower for not much money at all. The thermostatic controls sit on the far right of the bar and are very easy to use and allow for very slight temperature changes as well as more significant changes. It has a default temperature that it can lock in to which is 38°C (100°F) that we don't often change it from, but if we did want to change it you simply press in the button and turn it to your desired temperature.On the far left of the bar are controls allowing you to control the volume of water that will be pumped out of the shower. It operates almost exactly the same as the thermostatic controls on the other end of the bar except that it does not have the same "lock" mechanism and is instead a simple control that allows no water, to all water and everything in between.I was worried that the shower would look and feel cheap (due to the price) however it is a solid, weighty, & modern looking unit, and I actually prefer it to the expensive mixer that was previously installed.Installation was handled by our builder so I can't comment too much on that other than he added an additional back plate to the unit that attached to the wall. This was done simply to hide any pipes that would have been showing due to how the pipes were installed to begin with (not by us or our builder).We have had this unit installed for almost 2 months and it has been 2 months of flawless showers.Overall we rate this Thermostatic Bar Mixer very highly and can't recommend it enough based on our experience.