Taps, showers and fittings, judged on their measurements
The photograph never fits.
The measurements do.
Basin, kitchen and shower taps, shower systems and heads, toilet seats and flush valves, basins, wastes and traps, mirrors and vanity units — and the angle valves, hoses and silicone bought a week later. Compared on what actually decides whether they fit and last: the centre distance, the tap hole diameter, the flow rate with the pressure it was measured at, the cartridge size you will have to find again in five years. Priced on your own country's Amazon.
- Categories covered
- 47
- Fittings reviewed
- 130
- Accessories & spares
- 75
Every category we cover
Pick the job you are doing
28 families of fittings, 19 of accessories and spares. Each hub below compares one of them, with a plain answer to “what should I actually buy?” at the top — and the buying mistake that category invites.
- Basin taps One hole, 35 mm, and a tail long enough for your worktop
- Tall basin taps for countertop bowls The height is set by your bowl, not by taste
- Waterfall basin taps An open spout is louder, wetter, and harder to descale
- Sensor taps Where the power comes from is the whole question
- Pull-out kitchen taps The hose retracts by weight, and the weight has to fit
- Folding kitchen taps for under a window Two heights matter: standing, and folded flat
- 3-way filter kitchen taps A separate waterway, and a filter you keep buying
- Bath taps and fillers 150 mm between the centres, or nothing fits
- Thermostatic shower mixers The 38 °C stop is a detent, not a safety device
- Shower systems and columns One box, and it has to match the holes you already have
- Rain shower heads Size is a claim about your pressure, not about luxury
- Hand showers G1/2 fits everything, so judge the spray and the scale
- Shower rail sets The old screw holes decide more than the finish does
- Linear shower drains Height under the tray is the constraint nobody measures
- Soft-close toilet seats Three measurements, taken from the pan you already own
- Bidet toilet seats Non-electric or electric, and they are different products
- Cistern flush valves and fill valves The part that is actually running, not the whole cistern
- Macerators and lifting pumps Lift height and run length trade against each other
- Countertop basins A bowl with no tap hole, and that is the point
- Wall-hung basins It hangs on two bolts and everything depends on the wall
- Pop-up basin wastes Slotted or unslotted — get this wrong and it leaks
- Basin and sink traps The water seal is what keeps the smell out
- Bathroom mirror cabinets Doors that open where the room lets them
- LED bathroom mirrors Colour temperature, and where the electricity comes from
- Vanity units The trap has to fit inside it, and often does not
- Bathroom storage columns Tall, narrow, and it must be anchored to the wall
- Water softeners It treats limescale. It is not a health device.
- Tap and under-sink water filters What the maker declares it reduces, and nothing more
- Angle valves The part that lets you change everything else
- Flexible supply hoses Measure the run before you buy the length
- Shower hoses Universal thread, so it is about length and twist
- Tap aerators and cartridges Two spare parts that make an old tap new
- Sanitary silicone and seals Sanitary grade, or it goes black in a season
- Drain augers and unblockers Mechanical first — chemicals are the last resort
- Plumbing hand tools Three tools do nine tenths of bathroom work
- Shower shelves and caddies How it holds on is the whole review
- Shower curtains Weighted hem, washable, and wide enough to overlap
- Non-slip shower mats Suction cups need a smooth floor to grip at all
- Toilet brushes The holder is the part that decides everything
- Toilet roll holders Drilled or stuck, and one of them comes off the tile
- Over-toilet storage It has to straddle the cistern you actually have
- Towel rails and rings A wet towel is a kilo hanging on two screws
- Bathroom hooks and rails The stated load is for a straight pull, not a swing
- Soap dispensers Pump chemistry decides whether it survives your soap
- Bathroom accessory sets Cheaper together, and only if you want every piece
- Bath mats Absorbency, drying speed, and a backing that stays put
- Bathroom bins Small, damp, and it needs a liner that fits
How this site works
Three things we will not do
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Ranked on merit, not commission
Nothing here is ordered by what it pays. Where a €40 tap has the same 35 mm ceramic cartridge as a €160 one, that is what the page says — and where the cheap option is a false economy because its cartridge is a size nobody stocks, it says that instead.
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Reported, not paraphrased
A flow rate with the pressure it was measured at, a centre distance rather than a photograph, a cartridge diameter, a water seal depth, a tap hole size, a build height under the tray — the specifications that decide whether a thing fits and works, not the headline. Every figure names where it comes from, its unit is written exactly as the maker published it, and a figure we could not source is left out rather than guessed.
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Priced where you live
One button, fourteen Amazon stores. We send you to the same product on your own country’s Amazon, in your own currency — and where a model is not sold there, we say so instead of linking to a page that does not exist.
Prices quoted in these summaries are dated readings. The live price is shown next to each product.