How to extend shower breech seat?

Plumbbob

This is a very common question, and I am yet to find a workable solution. How do you extend the shower breech seat outwards by less than 28mm?

I have a set of quite expensive designer taps and the whole matching bathroom set for a refit / renovation. The provided spindles for the taps are adjustable from 80mm to 85mm in length and they have a proprietary design spindle end connector that fits into the tap handle and is secured by way of a locking grub screw.

I need to extend the breech seat and using Ceramic Disk Spindle (or breech seat) extenders appears to be the only way to do this. I cannot use the external extenders that just provide additional thread length outside the tap as this is not the problem. When I install the Kinetic 28mm Ceramic Disk Spindle Extenders they protrude out from the tiled wall surface by about 4 - 5 mm, preventing the Tap hardware, ie; backing plate and nut, from sitting back against the wall. The hexagonal nut section on the extenders is larger diameter than the hole in the backing plate and nut hardware of the taps.

The obvious fix is to buy a set of longer ceramic disk 1/4 turn spindles or reuse the ones that are already there and working, but the manufacturer doesn't sell longer spindles to suite these taps and the splined of double flat threaded styles do not have the facility to attach the correct handle connector.

I have considered the possibility of machining the 28mm extenders down to shorten them, but this would remove the entire internal threaded section, meaning you can't screw the spindles in. I haven't checked to see if this would work even if the threaded section went deeper.

So, is there a way of extending the breech seat outwards by a distance of less than 28mm? All available brands are the same 28mm.

Note: it is not possible to access the internals of the wall to re-position the breach.

MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @Plumbbob. It's wonderful to have you join us and many thanks for your question on wall tap sets

You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head with your last line. In situations like this, the breech itself really needs to be repositioned.

Before breech extenders became common, that was essentially the only solution. If the breech depth didn’t suit the tap set you wanted to install, the tapware simply wasn’t compatible with that installation depth. The challenge is that there isn’t a single standard breech depth. The breech is set during rough-in, but the final distance to the finished surface changes depending on the thickness of wall linings, tile adhesive and tiles.

Most of the time, standard wall taps can accommodate this variation because their spindles have a fair amount of adjustment. However, as you’ve discovered, there are cases where the tap runs out of adjustment. When that happens, we’re limited to the sizes available in extenders, and unfortunately, 28 mm is the common size across brands. That’s quite a large jump, so it’s not unusual for it to end up being too much extension, which then causes issues like the cover flange or backing plate not being able to sit flush against the tile.

Without a shorter extender option available, the realistic choices tend to be:

• Using tapware that suits the existing breech depth
• Using tapware that works with the 28 mm extension
• Repositioning the breech to the correct depth (which I understand isn’t possible in your case)

Unfortunately, there isn’t a widely available extender in the smaller increments that would solve this neatly, so it often comes down to matching the tap set to the installed depth rather than the other way around.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell