Replace Outside Shower with Faucet

Today I replaced the outside shower with a fold-away faucet.  Why would I do such a thing you ask?  Well, for a couple reasons.  As you see below, the standard outside shower fixture is not only a cheap plastic item, but the hose dangles all over the place blocking your access to the sewer hose outlet and the pull handles for dumping.

I have never used these showers for anything other than washing hands, so I thought a standard faucet fixture would be more appropriate, as well as solve the access issues.

I found this one on Amazon - it's a Price Pfister brand, but there are several that all look identical.  Go with what is cheapest at the time.   It's all metal, very heavy duty and should do the job for years.  A bonus is that the end of the faucet spout is threaded for a 3/4" standard garden hose.   So you can attach either a much longer hose for washing things up, or attach a hose to it and the black tank flush connector and clean your tank with the on-board water supply (be sure to use a backflow preventor valve!)

Step one was to remove the existing fixture.  Just simply twist off the pex water line nuts and the nuts that hold the fixture to the wet bay wall.   The shower hose also unscrews from the faucet.

Here it is with the fixture removed.   I'm going to leave the shower head and hose holders in place for now - I may have a use for them in the future.  This wall in the wet bay is just a thick plastic.  I know some people have used a piece of wood or metal bracket to reinforce this panel, but I don't really see the need with the way I secured it.

What I did was buy new backing nuts and some large metal washers (with a 3/4" center holes).  I put one washer on the outside (underneath the faucet's trim ring) and two on the inside on each hole.   Also, since the fixture is female, and the pex fittings are female, you need to get some 3" 1/2" NPT plastic threaded fittings to connect this together.  Simply a 50 cent item at the hardware store.   Here's the finished installation.   Feels tight and solid to me once everything was cinched down tight.

The faucet spout turns against the wall so you can close the bay door. Note that the handles can swing left or right as needed for the width of your openings - that gives you a lot of variance in how the plumbing was run in your RV, so it's really a one size fits all piece of hardware.    I like how this turned out very much.  It had all the hallmarks of a project that I look for - it was inexpensive, it was DIY, it's completely reversible, and it gives greater flexibility to using the RV.