Outdoor showers

The part of an outdoor shower you see is a few metres of copper on a post. Most of the job is underground: getting the hot and the cold out to that spot in the garden, and working out where the water goes once it hits the ground.

We plumb outdoor showers across the Upper Mountains, from the trench and the supply through to the rainhead and the taps.

What we handle

• Exposed copper outdoor showers with a rainhead
• Separate hot and cold taps to set the mix, with an on/off tap below
• Hot and cold supply run out underground from the house
• Fixing to a timber post or an outside wall
• Garden taps on a post along the same trench
• Repairs to outdoor showers that leak or have split in a freeze

Why copper

It is a standard pipe for indoor plumbing, so it handles mains pressure and hot water. Outside, every joint stays where you can see it, so you notice a drip early.

Getting hot water out to it

The hot comes from the house's hot water system, run out underground beside the cold. Distance is the trade-off. A shower near the back door gets hot water quickly, and one at the bottom of the garden runs cold for a while first. Pick the spot with that in mind.

Why it's different up here

Upper Mountains winters freeze. Pipe that is full of water on a frosty night can split, and a shower out in the garden is exactly that pipe. So we talk through how it drains down for winter when we plan the job.