Tile work?

[Brian]

Doing some basic home improvements around the bathroom, paint, change toilet, ect. So my wife asks me if I can change the shower faucet to a nicer one....sure, seems easy enough. Not being a construction worker or homebuilder, but knowing enough to get myself in trouble, I agree to it.

Turns out I need to make a hole in the opposing wall to access the existing plumbing behind the faucet to remove it and install the new faucet. I installed an access panel in the location so that it can be accessed if ever the need arises in the future. However, I'm taking a look at the pass-through that was originally cut for the faucet and it's only the top half of a circle. So, I expect I will need to cut the passthrough to accept the new shower faucet. I have a festool router and I'm thinking that a diamond bit will do the job, but they seem to get mixed reviews online.

Have any of you guys done this sort of work? Any advice/recommendations that you guys offer would be much appreciated.

As a side note, all of the enjoyment of this project is in the shower head, which I changed in about 5 minutes. All of the work is in the valve, which offers very little in terms of experience.

[Scott]

Hi Brian-
If you have an angle grinder with a diamond blade you could make a series of cuts to create the desired hole size or get a bit for drilling porcelain tile and whats referred to as a parrot head nipper and achieve the same goal probably much cleaner also.

Scott

[Brian]

Thanks Scott. I am going to go for the diamond bit and nipper approach.

After I finish this my wife will probably ask me to re-tile the entire bathroom anyways.

Any woodwork I manage to include in this project I'll post up next year.

[Matt J]

+1 to what Scott said.

I sometimes use a Dremel with a small diamond wheel- slower going, but easier to control with one hand, allowing you to hold a vacuum nozzle with the other.

[Brian]

Update; my dad brought a rotozip with small diamond bit, worked nicely.

The new shower valve is sweeeeet. Happy with everything from Hans grohe, nicely made stuff for anyone whose planning a Rennovation.