[Augy123]

I am plumbing 2 showers that share a wall (back to back). In order to get the hot and cold supplies to the proper side of each valve requires lots of twists and turns. I was advised by someone to just use ½” male threaded connectors on the supply lines (sweat fit to copper) and then simply use those braided faucet hoses to go from that connector to the valves. It sounds reasonable and much simpler than trying to sweat 20 elbows in a small area. Is this a safe (meaning leak-free) way to plumb this project or am I inviting trouble down the road? Thanks for any advice.

[ballengerb1]

You should not use braided lines sealed inside a wall. They are pretty good lines but prone to failure when compared to sweated coper. You might consider installing one valve slightly higher than normal and the other valve a bit lower. This will give you more room.

[Augy123]

Ok, I kind of thought it sounded a little easy. It sure is tempting though!

The valve ports (hot/cold inlets, shower head outlet) combine both a threaded fitting and 1/2" slip sweat fitting. I seem to have difficulty sweating copper to these types of fittings so is it ok to just sweat the pipe to a 1/2" female threaded connector and then, using pipe compound or thread tape, attach it that way? So, in other words, I would sweat all the connections from the supply except for that very end which would be a threaded connection onto the valve assembly.

[ballengerb1]

That sounds good to me but let's let this post age a bit and the plumbing pros will get on later this PM. Speedball1 or Doug 238 might have adiffrent read on a solution.

[labman]

The site discourages asking questions in a PM, https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/announ...-pm-45757.html

Best wait. I usually answer the questions on the dog forum before reading a PM.

[iamgrowler]

I am plumbing 2 showers that share a wall (back to back). In order to get the hot and cold supplies to the proper side of each valve requires lots of twists and turns. I was advised by someone to just use ½” male threaded connectors on the supply lines (sweat fit to copper) and then simply use those braided faucet hoses to go from that connector to the valves. It sounds reasonable and much simpler than trying to sweat 20 elbows in a small area. Is this a safe (meaning leak-free) way to plumb this project or am I inviting trouble down the road? Thanks for any advice.

Read the rough-in instructions for the valves -- A number of manufacturers design their valves in such a way that you can reverse the water supply in back to back installations and then just flip the valve core (the guts inside the valve body) upside down to correct the reversed connection.

This is true with most Moen, American Standard, Kohler and Grohe (not to be confused with Hans Grohe) shower and tub shower valves.