Replacing Symmons NU-Arm Fixture With Pipe

idesign

We're doing an upgrade on the bathrooms in this house, and one of the three full baths has a weird shower "arm" that looks more like a tub spout than a shower arm. It's a Symmons model 301 NU-Arm as best as I can determine and the plumbing setup is not the norm I've dealt with in the past as the head bracket has a threaded mount about 3" out from the shower wall. So it looks like the only way we can put the 12" CPB pipe in is if we open up the wall behind the shower and add (solder on) a standard threaded elbow. I really hate to tear open a finished wall, but I suppose if its absolutely necessary, then it's got to be done. But I thought I'd ask for some advice here before we cut it open.

TIA.

Ron The Plumber

It threads on a nipple stub out, it should unscrew from there, have you tried.

idesign

I called Symmons about 2 hours ago just to see if they had a longer version that would make sense as a retrofit but they don't. Dumb... you'd think they'd anticipate that customers would maybe want 8" diameter shower fixtures and those need to be around 12" to the center of the head from the wall. The guy on the other end said unfortunately, you have to change out the elbow and put a female threaded elbow. So I opened up the wall behind the shower and it's exactly as I thought.

There's a 2X4 cross blocker, stud to stud that we'll cut out with a sawzall then cut the pipe about 12" below. Once we get the top sweated on and the 12" of pipe I'll mount it to a mortised 2X4 and match it to the old blocker and screw/glue it in place. Then I'll put a sweat joint where I cut it. I hate doing vertical sweats, but I'm behind schedule and need to get this done. Once I can see that the sweats are all good, I'll put another blocker right next to the sweat joint just to ensure that the pipe won't wiggle over time and pop a leak.

We only opened up a 7" X 18" slot so I can use some firing strips to flange in the sheetrock. If all goes well, I should be able to get it swapped over and buttoned up by tonight, and then sand/paint the whole section of wall so it looks consistent.

Nothing's easy huh.