Advice to install heavy bath tap to wall.

[Ant1]

Hi all,

I need to install the following bath tap to the wall:



Below is a photo of the 1/2 BSP connector at the back of the tap:



I am intending on cutting a channel in the tiles for each of the 15mm water pipe (using my angle grinder and a diamond blade) and then connect the above connectors to push-fit wall plate elbows 15mm x 1/2 BSP:




I have a few questions as I have never done it:

1) I need to do this with minimum damage as I am trying to retain as many tiles as possible (the tiles are really old and I would like to preserve as many as possible), is there a way to remove tiles from walls without breaking/damaging them?

2) When connecting the 1/2 BSP connector to the wall plate elbow, can I just use PTFE tape or should I use a leak sealer instead? Or both of them?

3) I read the reviews for those wall plate elbows, they should normally be able to take the weight of the tap, would you agree?

4) Would the wall plate elbow normally fully sit inside the wall? Or shall the tip of the BSP connector on the wall plate elbow be flush with the surrounding tiles?

5) How big (i.e. wide) the hole shall be to fit those wall plate elbows? (I have not purchased them yet, trying to understand which diamond holesaw to get)

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 292770]

what room is the other side of the wall?

 

[Ant1]

what room is the other side of the wall?

I cannot get to the other side, there is a 40 cm wide wall made of stone and then another terraced house.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Good luck with that!
Weightwise the brass elbow couplers will take the load if they are solidly fixed to a solid flat surface. Fitting wise remember they have to be absolutely parallel.
The pipework you're connecting to- is it loose or fixed?
Ideally the elbows would be entirely recessed in the wall, the chrome tap adaptors will hide them.
Sealing the threads I'd suggest Loctite 55- packs a bit better than PTFE.
And finally, do a mock-up first- make a wall from some scrap ply or something with a polystyrene tile (can you still get them?) or a scrap tile stuck to it and have a go or 2

 

[Ant1]

Thanks for all the tips @oldbutnotdead , I think that instead of cutting the tiles in situ, I will just remove them (they will likely break) and try to replace them with the best match, otherwise it might just be too messy.

Regarding the pipework, I intend fixing the pipes to the wall.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Find some tiles the same size but different pattern/colour- then it'll look like a deliberate piece of design rather than a camouflage attempt.
Reason for asking about pipework being loose or fixed- if the tubes are loose it'll be a lot easier to get them into the pushfits and then mount the pushfits to the wall. In fact given your Plan B you might consider mounting the elbows to a piece of ply then fixing the ply to the wall and retiling over the top of it. Think tile adhesive will stick to ply, check before you commit.

 

[Ant1]

Thanks again!