Need to know how to install a new shower

[Confused]

The name Confused says it all......The home I am thinking of renting does not have a shower head and the wall around it is not a shower wall. I am assuming there is not a connecting pipe. What steps am I going to have to do to get a shower. It needs to be inexpensive and easy. I am clueless when it comes to things like this and a girl at that, so please tell me in English

[LazyPup]

Before we begin discussing your plumbing project there is a far more important topic that must be addressed.

According to the information in your post this is a rental property. In most jurisdictions the State or Local "Landlord & Tenant Law" prohibits a Tenant from making, or causing to be made, any permanent alterations to the structure without the absolute written consent of the property owner. (In a situation where the landlord is an agent for the property owner, even the landlord cannot give consent, only the landowner). Do not take this lightly because not only can they immediately cancel your lease, you could and generally would be held liable for the cost of restoring the property to its original condition and any and all property damage associated with the alteration. The extent of liability here could be tremendious; by example, if you happen to break a water line in the process and flood an apartment on the floor below you would be liable not only for repairing the water line but any and all damage to the structure or personal property in the lower apartment and if the damage is significant enough to render the lower apartment untenable, you could be held for the cost of suitable accomodations for the other tenants while repairs are being made.

The second point that you must consider is while a homeowner working on their own home may get away with methods that are less than code standard, such is not the case in a rental property. In the unforseen event that a repair or alteration in a rental property should result in damage to the structure or the personal posssessions of other tenants it would result in a thorough inspection of the problem and if it was determined that the work was below code minimum the person who performed or authorized the work to be performed would be held solely responsible for the damages.

In my jurisdiction all rental property must be code inspected once a year and all substandard work must be brought up to code standard immediately. When it is determined that there was a willful intent to violate code it also results in some very serious fines or jail time. (One slumlord in my community was just sentenced to one year in the county jail for code violations).

Please understand that I do not mean to imply that you might circumvent the Landlord & Tenant law or the building codes, but I offer this information for the bennefit of anyone reading this post so that they understand seriousness of the consequences.

Having said all that, let us now get down to your project:

In order to determine how to install a shower riser we must first consider how to get inside the wall where the tub faucett mixer assembly is. If the shower mixer is inside an interior wall you may be able to access it by opening the wall from an adjacent room. In this case, if your tub enclosure has a waterproof surround (Fiberglass, acrylic or tile) extending upwards to a height of 72" above the drain you should be able to continue using it even though the wall composition may not meet code now. The current plumbing codes require the wall to be made of cement backerboard until 72" above the drain, but if we can install the showe riser without opening an existing wall in the shower area, the shower surround would then be ok, providing it met code for a shower enclosure at the time it was originally put in, and futher providing that installation is not altered in any way.

Most tub mixing valves have two output ports. One on the underside where a pipe is run down to the tub faucett and a second port on top that can be used to run a pipe up to the shower head. When no shower is installed the top port is plugged. In this case you could simply remove the plug, insert a male thread adapter and run a vertical riser up to the shower head. You would then need to remove the existing tub spout and replace it with a spout that has a diverter valve built in. When the diverter valve is open the water will now flow through the spout, but when its closed the water would go up the riser to the shower head.

If your present tub mixer does not have the shower port you have two other options.
1.You can change the mixer to one that has a shower port.
2. You can install a Tee on the pipe to the tub spout and run a riser up from the TEE.

In either case you would still need to change the spout but fortunately spouts are very cheap and easy to change.

The next possibility is to install a tub spout with a diverter and a tap for a hand shower line. The hand shower line can then be run up to a hanger bracket at shower head height. The downside here is that the line would be on the outside of the wall in the shower enclosure and is a bit unsightly. (If you elect to use the handshower method the connection at the spout MUST BE equipped with a backflow preventer.)

If you cannot access the shower mixer through an adjacent wall from the backside you would then need to open the wall from the shower side. If so, you would also be required to rebuild the entire shower enclosure area to current code specs, which means the wallboard must be removed from the top of the tub up to a point 72" above the drain and you must install cement backerboard, then a waterproof covering material.