Shower faucet up side down?

[trkester]

Is Grand Design installing the shower faucets up side down?

Ever since getting my 297RSTS, I have wondered about turning the handles downward to turn on the water. Gravity and bumps in the road would seem to "potentially" allow the water to be turned on. Also, if you are trying to quickly turn things off, a downward motion is more natural than lifting up.

And the second factor is the fitting for the hose points up causing the hose to always have a bend and put stress on the fitting which doesn't seem to be terribly robust to begin with.

And reading the RV Travel review of a Flagstaff 5er this morning, I noticed in their photos, the faucet is installed with the hose pointing down rather than up like mine in the attached photo. Theirs allows the hose to hang nice and straight with less stress on things.

Am I overthinking?

[Cate&Rob]

Hi Terry and Patty:

An interesting idea! I remember thinking the same thing when we got our Reflection 303 and turning the faucets over was always on my “to do” list . . . but, I guess we got used to it. One consideration (for us) is that the shower head hose goes through a ring on the wall (to prevent banging against the wall while travelling) and I use the shower head and hot water to wash down the toilet bowl. It would not reach if I turned the faucets over.

Did you add the shower head shut off valve or did yours come that way? (Would be more difficult to reach if you turn it over)

Rob

[flyfshrockies]

trkester Interesting points you have made, all valid. Potentially turning on at some point is a near certainty. We had another brand in the past and the bathroom sink handles would turn on occasionally from vibration and bumps. Made quite the mess once when we forgot to turn off the pump while traveling and the drain plug was left in place, the grey tank filled then overflowed on the floor. An attempt to increase friction on the handles was only marginally successful. This seems a good example of something that could be passed to GD for a consideration of change, would cost nothing, and would be a great improvement. A quick fix for the handles might be installing round knobs.

Dave

[trkester]

Hi Terry and Patty:

An interesting idea! I remember thinking the same thing when we got our Reflection 303 and turning the faucets over was always on my “to do” list . . . but, I guess we got used to it. One consideration (for us) is that the shower head hose goes through a ring on the wall (to prevent banging against the wall while travelling) and I use the shower head and hot water to wash down the toilet bowl. It would not reach if I turned the faucets over.

Did you add the shower head shut off valve or did yours come that way? (Would be more difficult to reach if you turn it over)

Rob

I added the valve from a conversation in a different thread. I have the same ring on the wall but when I switched heads to an Oxygenics, it came with a longer hose that wouldn't go thru the ring. I'm not done with the hose dilemma yet. I like the flexibility of the original but length of the new.

[StephenO]

trkester - doesn't look like it in your photo, but are the handles labeled with hot and cold? If they are it might get slightly confusing if they were flipped; although I'm sure there would be a way to swap the handles too.

[Yoda]

trkester - doesn't look like it in your photo, but are the handles labeled with hot and cold? If they are it might get slightly confusing if they were flipped; although I'm sure there would be a way to swap the handles too.

trkester

If flipped it would need to be re plumbed or hot / cold would be on the wrong side. Not sure if there are plumbing fittings on the top either for the feed lines. Would need to pull the wall cover and look.. Now it might be possible depending on how the valve cartridges are made to reverse them so on is up, but hose would still be out of the top. Hose comes out of the top on my unit.

[trkester]

trkester

If flipped it would need to be re plumbed or hot / cold would be on the wrong side. Not sure if there are plumbing fittings on the top either for the feed lines. Would need to pull the wall cover and look.. Now it might be possible depending on how the valve cartridges are made to reverse them so on is up, but hose would still be out of the top. Hose comes out of the top on my unit.

From the GD parts photo, looks like everything is symmetrical and a simple flip. I will have to see if my handles are marked blue and red but don't think they are.
Theirs shows colors but well see. Not an earthshaking issue but as flyfshrockies mentioned, I don't want to forget to shut the pump off and have thing flood going down the road. (or course keeping my aux valve off is another checkpoint.)

Thanks all for the thoughts.

Terry

[TedS]

I have considered turning the valve over because the loop in the hose caught under the hot handle when I pulled and it turned the hot off.
The hose loop hangs above the wall ring, so no stress on the hose valve connection.

[Jlawles2]

As with any faucet, the handles are generic and can be put on either side. Both of our other campers had the faucets mounted with the shower discharge up, just like they are mounted in a house (except the tub or shower surround hides it).

Pointing it down may seem like a normal way to have it, but when you pull the head out of the mount it limits the amount of travel. You may try pulling the handles and valves out to see if they can be swapped side to side. Some of the newer home faucet designs have the same internals, the difference from side to side is a plate that controls direction of handle turn.

[KamFlyer]

Is Grand Design installing the shower faucets up side down?

Ever since getting my 297RSTS, I have wondered about turning the handles downward to turn on the water. Gravity and bumps in the road would seem to "potentially" allow the water to be turned on. Also, if you are trying to quickly turn things off, a downward motion is more natural than lifting up.

And the second factor is the fitting for the hose points up causing the hose to always have a bend and put stress on the fitting which doesn't seem to be terribly robust to begin with.

And reading the RV Travel review of a Flagstaff 5er this morning, I noticed in their photos, the faucet is installed with the hose pointing down rather than up like mine in the attached photo. Theirs allows the hose to hang nice and straight with less stress on things.

Am I overthinking?

I flipped ours over a while back. Really easy as long as you can access the back side. In our case it is through a removable panel in the bedroom.
I did ours mainly so the hose would reach all corners of the shower to aid in rinsing and cleaning.

[Yoda]

From the GD parts photo, looks like everything is symmetrical and a simple flip. I will have to see if my handles are marked blue and red but don't think they are.
Theirs shows colors but well see. Not an earthshaking issue but as flyfshrockies mentioned, I don't want to forget to shut the pump off and have thing flood going down the road. (or course keeping my aux valve off is another checkpoint.)

Thanks all for the thoughts.

Terry

I stand corrected - it appear it can be flipped with a little bit of work - thanks for the information. learned something new - a good thing.

[howson]

KamFlyer -- your installation sure "looks" right.

A quick review of shower faucets on Google Images does show, however, that either installation could be correct. There's all kinds of different shower & faucet configurations with a zillion different combinations.

So I guess it's an aesthetics decision (plus the other concerns already documented). In my case deciding what looked "right" would be however the Domestic CC wanted it installed.

[Tom in PGH]

I tend to like it in the “upside-down” position. The “facing up position” allows for the maximum hose length for other uses. We have a portable washing machine that we use in the shower. We use the shower hose to fill it. If the hose were in the down-facing position, then it went up through the “eye-bracket” holder that is on the wall, it would be several inches higher when hanging down. That would be just a little short for our needs.